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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28853925">Your Stars are True</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penelope_Muir/pseuds/Penelope_Muir'>Penelope_Muir</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Wolfstar, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Minor James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Regulus Black Deserves Better, Regulus Black Feels, Regulus Black Lives, Regulus Black-centric, Romance is not a big thing in this story., Sirius Black is a Good Sibling, The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, This is all about the brothers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 04:41:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>18,986</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28853925</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penelope_Muir/pseuds/Penelope_Muir</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>They come across one another for the first time – Regulus and Padfoot – on a crisp, snowy night in December, almost a full year after Sirius left his little brother behind.</p><p>Regulus Lives AU.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Regulus Black &amp; Sirius Black</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>107</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>355</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Silence</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>An angel (Milz ;-) ) left me a prompt and from that, this fic was born. I hope you enjoy it!</p><p>  <i>Prompt: When Regulus is resistant to Sirius' attempts at reconciliation, he comes to him as Padfoot, instead. Brotherly love, HEA, Regulus Lives AU.</i><br/></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p>
  <em>Hogwarts, December 1976…</em>
</p><p>They come across one another for the first time – Regulus and Padfoot – on a crisp, snowy night in December, almost a full year after Sirius left his little brother behind.</p><p>High as the full moon was that night, it was almost impossible to see beyond the thick, heavy clouds that hung over the castle.</p><p>Just a flash, here and there, as they slowly moved on by, lighting and casting shadows in their wake.</p><p>It was pointless, then, if the stars weren't visible for Regulus to go to the Astronomy Tower that night.</p><p>So, instead, with a careful glance to ensure there weren't any professors or ghosts or <em>Filch</em> around to spot him, he stepped out into the darkness of the courtyard, figuring that mindlessly pacing the grounds might just have the same effect as seeking refuge in the night sky.</p><p>He tucked the journal clutched in his hands into his robes, burying his hands in the warmth of the pockets of his cloak, lost in the sight of snowflakes falling and the sound of those already fallen crunching beneath his boots.</p><p>He didn't really know how long he wandered, before he sensed it; a faint prickling up the back of his neck that told him he was being watched.</p><p>Regulus turned, half-expecting it to be Peeves, lying in wait to pound him with something, but instead, he saw just a faint movement, barely visible in the darkness at first.</p><p>Regulus squinted, and the figure moved forward into the moonlight, revealing itself as an <em>enormous</em> jet-black dog, the size of which, alone, was enough to have Regulus' hand go to his wand.</p><p>But he hesitated in his movement for, while the eyes gleamed eagerly, they were pale – grey – and intensely familiar; so much so that he felt disorientated for a moment, as he looked back into them.</p><p>Unafraid.</p><p>For a moment, at least.</p><p>A wolf howled in the distance.</p><p>The dog snarled and Regulus ran.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>Grimmauld Place, December 1975…</em>
</p><p>Sirius ran.</p><p>Regulus could barely comprehend the truth of it, as the silence descended over Grimmauld Place in the aftermath of the night before.</p><p>The night that Sirius had, at some point, slipped from the house, taking nothing with him but his wand.</p><p>Regulus stepped into the silent dining room, where his mother and father were already sat at the table to their Christmas Eve breakfast.</p><p>An overly indulgent spread, as was tradition.</p><p>They hadn't summoned him down, allowing Regulus to pretend to sleep until well past nine, so that their own fast was already well and truly broken by the time he arrived.</p><p>He'd walked by Sirius' room – the wide-open door, and the still perfectly made-up bed – and down the stairs, haunted by the quiet and still in denial at the possibility that his brother was actually gone.</p><p>Sirius wasn't even of age.</p><p>It hadn't been this quiet in the house since the in-between year – as Regulus called it – when Sirius had first gone to Hogwarts, and Regulus had been left behind.</p><p>The almost-deafening quiet, that year – as if all the light had gone out of Grimmauld Place without Sirius' presence – had been punctuated now and again only with reminders of what a terrible disappointment it was that his brother – the Heir to the House of Black – should be sorted into <em>Gryffindor</em>, of all places – the mortification! – and Regulus was most certainly <em>not </em>to be repeating that same mistake.</p><p>There were no such warnings, this morning.</p><p>It was just a given, now, that Regulus would never follow where his brother led.</p><p>His parents barely even acknowledged that he'd walked into the room; his mother's focus remained entirely upon the remaining food on the plate in front of her, while his father's eyes remained firmly upon the Daily Prophet, that was clutched tightly in his hands.</p><p>It was eerily calm. Like the surface of water, that hid anything within that was ready to pull you beneath its depths.</p><p>Regulus picked at his own food a little, for a good ten minutes, before he broke the silence.</p><p>"Where's Sirius?"</p><p>There was a decided silence in the wake of his words.</p><p>No acknowledgement, as if Regulus hadn't spoken at all.</p><p>As if Sirius had never <em>been</em> there at all.</p><p>Neither of them said a word, until Regulus asked about the article his father was reading, and it was only then that either of them looked at him and so began another discussion about the whispers of the Dark Lord that would soon change their world.</p><p>It was a little over an hour later before Regulus stepped into the drawing room and saw it, plain as day. The blackened scorch on the tapestry where his brother's name should have been.</p><p>Sirius Black; renounced from the House of Black.</p><p>A scar. A blemish.</p><p>Not to be spoken of.</p><p>It shouldn't have been the shock that it was. He and Sirius were made to stand there, along with their aunt and uncle and cousins, when the very same had happened to Andromeda.</p><p>Apparently, Sirius wasn't to receive the same ceremony as their cousin.</p><p>Sirius would be disappointed.</p><p>Regulus scoffed a little to himself, at the thought.</p><p>Regulus didn't confront his parents – his mother – about it. In fact, he barely reacted at all and he noticed his mother glance at him out of the corner of her eye as he simply stood and stared at the tapestry.</p><p>Her gaze lingered upon him, as if daring him to defy her.</p><p>He wondered if he ever could.</p><p>He wondered how Sirius could live with that.</p><p>He wondered how anyone could forsake their own family.</p><p>But then, as he stood there, determined to believe and swallow the fact that Sirius had betrayed them, the anger and the resentment that rose up within him was just as much for his parents who sat in the room pretending his brother had never existed, as it was for the person who'd run away.</p><p>Regulus didn't linger much longer – grateful, that he'd taken to spending most of his time prior to Sirius' departure locked up in his room, anyway, so it was nothing out of the ordinary – for the silence and the challenge in the air of the drawing room was becoming suffocating the longer it stretched, and he went back up the stairs to his room where his books and his journals and the articles he still had to read were waiting – his purpose – but he stopped before he reached it, at Sirius' door instead.</p><p>He hadn't been inside his brother's room in over a year.</p><p>Though, now, it felt like it could have been yesterday.</p><p>Every memory he had of himself and his brother suddenly felt very close, vivid, as they passed by him in a flash.</p><p>Regulus shook his head, as if to shake it all away.</p><p>The memories or the reality, he wasn't entirely sure.</p><p>Regulus stepped across the threshold – of what he supposed was the 'spare room', now – and his eyes scanned all that was in it, searchingly, as if he might, somehow, find evidence of his brother's planned escape and betrayal within.</p><p>But there was nothing.</p><p>Nothing out of the ordinary, anyway, considering that this was <em>Sirius' </em>room and all of the daft posters of half-naked muggle ladies and motorcycles and Gryffindor banners were something he'd seen – and heard the heated screeches about – more times than he could count.</p><p>Regulus pointedly didn't look at the only wizarding photograph on the wall – the image of <em>them</em> – and turned his back, heading in the direction of the desk, instead.</p><p>The surface was scattered with clutter which could have been either due to Sirius' ever-enduring messiness or because his parents had already done what he was doing now.</p><p>He fingered at the items upon it, knowing that if there <em>was </em>anything, his parents would have taken it by now and so, he turned away, resigned to just leave and pretend – as his parents seemed to wish – that he'd never had a brother who'd walked out and left him behind.</p><p>He stepped on an open hardback on the floor.</p><p>A sketchbook, Regulus realised, when he lifted it and flicked through the pages.</p><p>There were sketches, some more detailed than others, some embellished with little flashes of colour, some of them black and white.</p><p>He'd forgotten that Sirius did that.</p><p>The creations were meaningless – at least to Regulus – a motorcycle and a stag and a dog and a rat. There was one of Lupin, that Regulus turned over without a second glance, but the last one brought him up short.</p><p>It was of a boy without a smile, robes done up impeccably, and a haunted emptiness about the eyes.</p><p>Regulus knew, despite himself, that it was supposed to be him.</p><p>He snapped the book shut – not entirely sure why he was so offended by it – and tossed it back onto the desk, before he walked determinedly from the room.</p><p>It was almost easy, to forget what had happened, as the day moved into night.</p><p>But at night, it all came back, and Regulus was haunted by the betrayal, and by the sketch, and by what he was sure was the faint sound of his mother's sobs.</p><p>Regulus vaguely wondered, as he lay there with his eyes closed, why his mother or father didn't put a silencing charm on the room.</p><p>But Regulus knew the truth of it.</p><p>That she wanted him to hear it.</p><p>The hurt.</p><p>They all knew that Regulus could never stand the sight or sound of pain.</p><p>Silence and sobs; there was no better way to keep their youngest in line.</p><p>So, Regulus lay there through the night – eyes closed while his mind raced – and listened to the tears until the deafening silence fell upon Grimmauld Place once more.</p><p>His resentment was all for his brother by the end of the night.</p><p>But, still, before he went back to Hogwarts at the end of the Christmas break, he couldn't help himself from snatching up the journal with the sketches and taking it with him back to school.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Fear</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Hogwarts, January 1976…</em>
</p><p>Christmas at the Potters felt nothing like home.</p><p>It was a thought that lingered throughout the entirety of the festive break. And while it never left Sirius’ mind, he was acutely aware that Christmas at the Potters was precisely what being at home was <em>supposed </em>to feel like.</p><p>A place immersed in love and joy and laughter. A place of comfort and belonging.</p><p>It wasn’t home, as Sirius knew it.</p><p>It was better.</p><p>Something entirely out of this world.</p><p>Still, when he wasn’t engaged in the jokes and games and chatter, his mind returned and lingered on memories of the stoic, distant gazes of his father over his papers; his mother’s eyes that flashed fire and her words that could lacerate as deeply as the sharpest knife; his little brother’s obedient silences and innocent – foolishly naïve – eyes as he took in everything that was said to him.</p><p>It was Regulus that haunted him the most.</p><p>His idiot little brother that he’d left behind.</p><p>It took a few weeks of being back at Hogwarts, before Sirius finally had a chance to catch him – to try to explain or reassure him – for Regulus would duck out of sight, around corners and up the stairwells, the moment he caught sight of his brother approaching.</p><p>Not this time.</p><p>Sirius approached Regulus where he sat at the Slytherin Table, along with Elijah Greengrass and Barty Crouch Jr, deep in – idiotic – conversation.</p><p>“…it’s right here, see,” Crouch Jr. said, pointing at something in front of them on the table; “Two cases of it – this muggle disease – in wizards. The more the bloodlines dilute, the more cases like this we’ll be seeing –“</p><p>Sirius eye-rolled so hard his head may as well have rolled off his shoulders, as he clapped a hand down on Regulus’ shoulder.</p><p>“Reggie –“ his brother jumped; “ – Mind if I have a word?”</p><p>Regulus looked up at him.</p><p>For a second, there was bewilderment – and betrayal – entirely evident in his gaze. But it was quickly smothered with a mask of indifference.</p><p>A somewhat poor emulation of their father.</p><p>“What are you doing here?”</p><p>“Looking for you; why else would I be slumming it at this side of the hall?”</p><p>Regulus’ eyes narrowed, before he turned away, jerkily gathering up the books in front of him and getting to his feet.</p><p>“Should’ve saved yourself the bother.”</p><p>Sirius stepped in front of him, to prevent him from bolting; “Listen. I thought we could talk. You know. Brother to brother?”</p><p>Regulus met his eyes then and the betrayal was back, even more visible than it had been before, as much as his brother tried to hide it.</p><p>Regulus had always been terrible at hiding his emotions.</p><p>Just like their mother – and Sirius – his little brother’s hands tremored, slightly, when under their influence. But he never exploded like they two did. He buried it; keeping it all inside and pretending it wasn’t there at all.</p><p>Sirius was certain he’d go bloody well <em>insane</em>, bottling it all up the way Regulus tried to.</p><p>His brother would always try for silence and stoicism like their father, never quite meeting the mark.</p><p>Regulus’ hands shook now, even as he lifted his chin, looking Sirius straight in the eye with his next words.</p><p>“You’re not my brother.”</p><p>Regulus shoved by him – not fast enough for Sirius not to hear the slight tremble of the breath that left him – and Sirius’ eyes followed him, as he headed from the Great Hall.</p><p>It was the first time Sirius realised his brother’s words had the ability to lacerate like knives, just like their mother’s.</p><p>But, then again, that made perfect sense for Sirius was entirely sure as he watched him leave, that his little brother was simply reiterating their mother’s own words.</p><p>The betrayal he knew all of them felt – and would cling to, never letting go – when he’d left them behind.</p><hr/><p>
  <em>Hogwarts, December 1976…</em>
</p><p>Night after night, the dog came back.</p><p>Regulus could see it in the shadows, in the exact same spot that he’d seen it the first time, just watching him, whenever he was able to slip from the dungeons.</p><p>As if Regulus, himself, was what the creature had come for.</p><p>Maybe it had.</p><p>It was after the fourth night that he saw at – within the same week as the very first – that Regulus started going to library, in his determination to read up on all that he could about the legend of the Grim.</p><p>“Always got your nose stuck in a book, Black,” Barty remarked, from where he sat at his side in the Great Hall.</p><p>Regulus didn’t look up from the passage describing the Grim – which he must have read at least a dozen times since checking it out the day before – and simply gave a little scoff of agreement, before Barty’s attention was drawn away by the antics of some of their sixth years a few seats up.</p><p>
  <em>…gleaming yellow eyes…</em>
</p><p>Regulus was certain that the eyes of the dog that waited from him were grey.</p><p>Like his own.</p><p>And –</p><p>“Oi,” Barty said, as he gave him a nudge with his elbow before speaking lowly in his ear; “You heard what people are saying ‘bout those spells Mulciber used on MacDonald last year?”</p><p>Regulus shook his head, eyes still on the book.</p><p>“Well,” Barty went on, with a careful glance around them; “Rumour’s going about those were <em>Snape’s</em> spells. He <em>invented </em>‘em…”</p><p>Regulus scoffed, still not looking up.</p><p>“That upside-down-by-the-ankle thing? Sure, he did.”</p><p>“Not just that one, few others too –“ he chuckled at Regulus’ scepticism; “ – No joke, Reg. It’s all the talk with the sixth years right now. The things he’s been coming up with…Avery thinks it’s his way in to…you know.”</p><p>Regulus stopped short in his reading at that, meeting Barty’s eyes, before his gaze drifted over the other’s shoulder to where Snape was sat amongst the sixth year Slytherins, a slow smirk developing at something that Mulciber was saying.</p><p>As if sensing Regulus’ eyes upon him, the black eyes flicked right without warning and found him staring.</p><p>Snape raised an eyebrow at him, with a look of disdain that reminded Regulus that he was seen as barely more than an extension of his brother.</p><p>Regulus eyed him back, uncowed by the look he was given, before he shifted, his own gaze going back to Barty at his side, who went on; “Apparently Malfoy is <em>very </em>interested.”</p><p>Regulus frowned.</p><p>“He’s a <em>half-blood</em>.”</p><p>“I know, right?” Barty barked, laughingly then, before he slapped Regulus on the back; “Practically filth himself!”</p><p>Regulus didn’t laugh.</p><p>Rather, his frown deepened even further, for he was too baffled by the relayed information – that the Dark Lord would be recruiting <em>half-bloods</em> to their cause – which surely couldn’t be reconciled with what he’d been told by Bellatrix and Lucius at the parties that they occasionally found themselves frequenting together.</p><p>Regulus frowned all the way to his defence class, deep in thought as he tried to make sense of it.</p><p>Though his musings on the matter were driven quickly from his mind, five minutes into the lesson, when the topic of the day was announced.</p><p>Boggarts.</p><p>“Alright, everyone line up, single file –” Professor Doyle clapped her hands together, “ – don’t forget those wands.”</p><p>The class did as she said, making a queue.</p><p>There was a stir of apprehension amongst those that stood in the line, but it gradually became one of animated excitement as, one-by-one, each took their place before the boggart, at the front of the room.</p><p>Regulus swallowed, hard, as he lingered close to the back, until it was his own turn; by which point the room was filled with shouts and animated laughter, more having faced their fears and ridiculed them, than not.</p><p>“Black.”</p><p>Regulus gripped his wand tighter – as if that might get his nervousness under control – before he stepped forward, lifting his chin and putting on a show of bravery.</p><p>He didn’t really know, himself, what to expect when faced with a boggart.</p><p>He’d only ever encountered one once, as a child, and, when he had, it had become a ghost.</p><p>He was no longer afraid of ghosts.</p><p>Sometimes, he never felt afraid of anything.</p><p>Other times, he was almost crippled by it.</p><p>Fear.</p><p>The boggart before him morphed.</p><p>He half-expected it to become his mother.</p><p>Instead, it took the form of a creature that Regulus would never have guessed in a million years. Something that he’d never even seen in person before.</p><p>But he knew, well enough, what it was.</p><p>Sirius had shown him pictures years before, frightening him with tales of these creatures of darkness and death.</p><p>A Thestral.</p><p>There was a collective murmur – gasps of horror and whispers – behind him, some of them asking one another <em>“what </em>is<em> that?”, </em>while Regulus stared back at it, with a growing sense of unease and confusion, frozen on the spot.</p><p>He couldn’t raise his wand if he tried.</p><p>He kept his eyes upon the winged, skeletal creature, even when another Slytherin stepped before it – not looking entirely keen to get anywhere near it, either – until it morphed away and took the form of a giant spider.</p><p>The class was dismissed less than half an hour later, with the assignment of two rolls of parchment on the nature of fear and the danger of fear itself.</p><p>Regulus sat down to it almost immediately, when curfew hit that night.</p><p>He didn’t get it.</p><p>He supposed of all the things that frightened him, he couldn’t really pinpoint the one that crippled him the most.</p><p>Fear of disappointing his family, perhaps.</p><p>Though, sometimes, he wondered if his very existence – so lacking in the fire that the Black heir before him had burned with – had already rendered that fear mute.</p><p>His mother’s almost-daily assertions that Regulus was ‘the good boy’, had left along with Sirius – no one to throw them at, anymore - and said declarations were now replaced, instead, with increasingly venomous remarks spoken against the mudbloods and the blood-traitors who had radicalised her firstborn son.</p><p>Driving herself crazy with the hatred.</p><p>Or, maybe, it was the fear of never doing anything worthwhile. No mark left behind on the world, so that he may as well not have existed in the first place.</p><p>But that pushed him forward, rather than held him back.</p><p>Or…</p><p>He’d already lost his brother.</p><p>Regulus pushed the thought away.</p><p>Fear of death, itself, wasn’t something he’d ever really thought about.</p><p>He wasn’t afraid of the Grim that stalked him.</p><p>But boggarts couldn’t be tricked, Regulus knew that as well as anyone, so he put quill to parchment and did the assignment, anyway.</p><p>Making it up as he went along, how his worse fear was something as simple and dull as dying.</p><hr/><p>A week – and two more distant encounters with the grey-eyed Grim – later, Regulus was still alive and well and Professor Doyle asked Regulus to stay behind at the end of defence class.</p><p>There was a kindness about her eyes behind the gold-rimmed glasses she wore, as she regarded him where he stood on the opposite side of her desk, uncertainly.</p><p>“Are you afraid of death, Mr. Black?”</p><p>Regulus relaxed, slightly, at the question, before he gave a shrug.</p><p>“Apparently so, Professor. The boggart said as much, didn’t it? A Thestral.”</p><p>“Hm. Do you mind if I ask…are Thestrals a creature with which you are familiar?”</p><p>“I’ve never seen one, if that’s what you mean. Not until the class. But I’ve seen pictures. And I know what they are and what they mean.”</p><p>“You do?” she seemed sceptical, though not unkind, and Regulus started to feel uneasy, then, at the understanding with which she seemed to be looking at him.</p><p>As if she knew something about him, that he, himself, didn’t.</p><p>“Death,” Regulus said, simply.</p><p>Professor Doyle’s eyes remained upon him a little longer – just long enough for him to feel uncomfortable – and then she cleared her throat and adjusted her glasses, before she reached for something on her desk.</p><p>“Mr. Black, Thestrals can only be seen, not by those who, themselves, have faced death –“</p><p>The assignment Regulus had completed and handed in a few days before was passed over, a large ‘P’ marked in the top corner as she spoke.</p><p>“ – but by those who have borne witness to it. I’d like you to think again on what that means for you.”</p><p>Regulus stared at the parchment he held, not really seeing anything, as he considered her words.</p><p>“Thing I’m most afraid of is…”</p><p>
  <em>Seeing death.</em>
</p><p>It was only then, when he realised it, that he really felt it.</p><p>More than the confusion and unease from before, when the Thestral was standing before him.</p><p>Fear.</p><p>He met Professor Doyle’s eyes, when she got to her feet; “I’ll grant you an extension until the beginning of the new term.”</p><p>Regulus swallowed, uneasily, but he still nodded – not objecting – and rolled up the nonsense he’d written and tucked it away into his robes.</p><p>She smiled and nodded at where he’d put it.</p><p>“Good story, though –“</p><p>Regulus smiled, just a little, past his discomfort. Never able to hold his own smile back, under the light of another’s.</p><p>“You do have quite the imagination, Mr. Black.”</p><hr/><p>It had been more than two weeks since Regulus had managed to sneak up the Astronomy Tower, by the time he finally found himself back up there with his eyes upon the stars.</p><p>Professor Doyle’s assignment – currently consisting of nothing more than the title, ‘<em>The Nature of Fear’</em> – lay on the stone ground beside him, while the sketchbook he’d brought with him – snatched from Sirius’ room at the beginning of the year – lay open on his lap.</p><p>It had been used by him since. Words filling many of the empty pages that followed Sirius’ final drawing.</p><p>Still, Regulus had left it lying open on that sketch.</p><p>An unsmiling boy with haunted eyes which stared back up from the pages.</p><p>Regulus wondered if that was how everyone saw him.</p><p>He didn’t know how long he was up there, before that familiar prickling feeling of being watched told him that he wasn’t alone.</p><p>He wasn’t surprised when he turned his head and met the grey eyes of the dog only a short distance away. The dog that he was fairly certain wasn’t<em> really </em>the Grim.</p><p>But even that certainty wasn’t enough to stop the alarm he felt at finding himself alone in a room with it.</p><p>The peculiar grey eyes stared at him, while Regulus swallowed – the only movement he dared to make at first – and simply stared back.</p><p>Emboldened by its seeming lack of aggression, Regulus lifted his chin.</p><p>“I’m not afraid of you,” he said, even as his hand went to his wand and he quickly rolled over numerous spells that he might be able to utilise against a giant, supernatural dog-beast in his mind.</p><p>It looked back at him and, for a second, Regulus could have sworn he could see <em>amusement </em>dancing in the dog’s eyes.</p><p>And then it bowed its head, as if in submission, and approached.</p><p>Regulus’ grip of his wand tightened, as he straightened up and leaned away, instinctively.</p><p>But none of the spells passed his lips, his wand barely lifting from the ground, and – within a few seconds – the dog stopped next to him and lifted its head once more.</p><p>The two of them practically nose to nose.</p><p>There was a second, where grey eyes stared into the grey. </p><p>And then the dog lay down at his side, lifting its chin and turning its gaze to the stars as Regulus had been doing minutes beforehand.</p><p>The tension left Regulus – slowly – as he gradually relaxed where he was sitting.</p><p>They stayed like that, both of them completely still, for a moment – the dog’s eyes on the night sky and Regulus’ eyes on the dog – before Regulus’ hand lifted and tentatively rested in amongst the soft, thick fur at its neck.</p><p>The warmth beneath his fingers was oddly comforting.</p><p>Warmth was a stranger to him.</p><p>The dog turned its head only slightly, looking back Regulus’ way.</p><p>And then Regulus leaned his head back against the stone wall behind him.</p><p>The two of them simply resting there, side-by-side, as they stared upwards at the stars.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Shame</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Malfoy Manor, December 1976…</em>
</p><p>Malfoy Manor was filled with the music, animated conversation, and laughter amongst those present that was entirely familiar for the annual Christmas Party that had been thrown at the residence since long before Regulus could remember.</p><p>And, as always, all the Blacks – who had not been disowned – were in attendance.</p><p>Though, while it was hardly the first time Regulus had been there, it <em>was </em>the first time he’d set foot in the place as ‘<em>one of the family</em>’ – as Abraxas Malfoy had put it – now that the much-anticipated alliance between the Blacks and the Malfoys had finally taken place; his youngest cousin having taken Lucius Malfoy as her husband just a few months previously.</p><p>Or, rather, the Malfoys had taken <em>her, </em>as was frequently said amongst the guests throughout the course of the evening, as they marveled at her beauty and how well she appeared to fill the role as the new Mrs. Malfoy.</p><p>Mrs. Narcissa Malfoy.</p><p>It sounded…odd.</p><p>She was still just Cissy Black to him.</p><p>But then Bellatrix <em>Lestrange </em>hadn’t exactly sounded much better, when his eldest cousin had married and now the name seemed to fit her perfectly.</p><p>Sirius had found it hilarious; the image immediately coming back to him, of his brother cackling wildly at the breakfast table when the announcement had been made, before declaring:</p><p>
  <em>“Couldn’t have picked it better myself!”</em>
</p><p>Regulus shook his head, casting the unwelcome memory aside, before he stepped back into the parlor from the conservatory, eager to get away from such nonsense talk.</p><p>Not that mindless whittering was something that was easily avoided, it seemed, for he, instead, found himself near enough to hear the hushed gossiping of some busybodies just across the threshold when he stepped inside.</p><p>“Very sad state of affairs, if I say so myself.”</p><p>“I had expected that the young Black heir would have returned by now. The <em>shame</em>, Eloise!”</p><p>“I doubt Walburga would allow him across the threshold even if he tried.”</p><p>The old bats laughed, then, while Regulus pushed down the urge he felt to say something – as he always did – and simply walked further into the room, feeling himself heat up in indignation on his family’s behalf.</p><p>
  <em>“There is nothing more shameful than putting oneself above the good of one’s family.”</em>
</p><p>His mother’s words to him when she’d caught him standing and staring at the tapestry that morning came back to him.</p><p>
  <em>“I know, Mother.”</em>
</p><p>He’d always known that.</p><p>Still, his mother’s eyes were cool – in a way that made Regulus wonder if she were actually <em>sceptical </em>as to the truth of his words – until she finally said – <em>“Good boy.” – </em>and had left him standing alone in the drawing room staring at the black mark where his brother’s name had once been.</p><p>“Did you hear about the Fenwick’s youngest?” a woman to his right said to another, as he passed, drawing him from his thoughts; “Squib.”</p><p>“<em>Another</em>?”</p><p>“Mhm,” the woman said, as she fanned herself, lifting her chin; “No doubt due to that <em>muggleborn </em>that Fenwick’s father saw fit to marry.”</p><p>“I say. But two in one generation – siblings, no less – oh. I pity them.”</p><p>“Pity <em>them</em>? Pity us all. Soon enough, the dilution of the bloodlines will be so great – <em>half-bloods </em>are already far outnumbering us as it is – that this occurrence will soon become the <em>norm</em>. Multiple generations of squibs, until magic becomes nothing more than the fairytale those muggles believe it all to be –”</p><p>Regulus carried on by, frowningly, for he was certain there were undeclared muggleborns in his <em>own </em>line – much as his mother was keen to erase all evidence of it – and he wondered if that meant his own children were at higher risk of being squibs, then.</p><p>He wondered if his mother would then blast <em>them</em> from the tapestry – though of course she would, if she would her own son – leaving black scorches on the tapestry in the place of her grandchildren.</p><p>Regulus wondered if he’d actually stand by and allow that to happen.</p><p>“Ah. There he is –“ Regulus was suddenly clapped on the shoulder by Abraxas Malfoy, as he reached where he and his father stood, “ – you’ll be next, Son.”</p><p>Regulus followed Mr. Malfoy’s nod to Narcissa, where she was currently stood by the mantlepiece smiling and charming the guests who surrounded her – the picture-perfect hostess – while Regulus felt himself grow even <em>more </em>uncomfortable, even as he shot the man a polite smile, saying nothing.</p><p>“Greengrass, was it?” Mr. Malfoy said, addressing his father, this time.</p><p>His father dipped his chin, slightly; “Plenty of time for that, Abraxas.”</p><p>Regulus couldn’t get out of the room fast enough after <em>that </em>little reminder of his future, and he eventually found himself in the relatively small – though no less grandiosely furnished – library, trying to drive away any thoughts of his impending betrothal, the likelihood of him fathering a <em>squib</em> and his brother; the shame of whose disownment still haunted them over a year after the event had actually taken place.</p><p>Instead, he thought of the dog that had come to him that night in the Astronomy Tower and the minutes that had eventually stretched into hours, during which they’d done nothing but simply lounge there under the stars, while he mulled over the boggart and the assignment he still hadn’t completed.</p><p>The fear of seeing death.</p><p>The dog didn’t come back.</p><p>At least, not on the few nights Regulus had eagerly slipped away to the tower, again, seeking his presence before the school term had ended.</p><p>The days passed by, leaving him bereft of the company, until Regulus eventually found himself aboard the Hogwarts Express and heading home for the dreaded winter break.</p><p>By the time Christmas had come and gone – over a week spent at home in the still, almost-constant cold silence of Grimmauld Place – Regulus began to wonder if he’d just imagined the whole thing.</p><p>Still. It was far better to imagine being in the tower with the dog that had come to him, than to <em>actually </em>spend time here, at another of these stuffy parties, without Sirius there, mocking all the guests at his side as he’d always done while Regulus tried not to laugh too loudly, lest they draw their parents ire.</p><p>It was another memory that was entirely unwelcome.</p><p>His brother’s jokes and smiles.</p><p>Regulus pushed it away, opting to just linger in the library lost in his thoughts, until Lucius eventually came upon him and immediately announced that he had <em>‘those books you’ve shown such a great interest in, according to your cousin,’ </em>before he sought about fetching them.</p><p>It took a minute for Regulus to realise what the man was talking about – for he and Narcissa never talked <em>books</em> – and it was only when said books were handed over that he realised that Lucius was talking about Bella.</p><p>“These should provide you with all of the information you wished to know.”</p><p>Regulus smiled, politely, giving him a nod.</p><p>“Thanks.”</p><p>He glanced down at the title of the first – <em>The Great British Witch-Hunts: The Story of a Persecution – </em>hoping he didn’t look <em>too </em>overly eager to receive them, before he tucked them away under his arm.</p><p>“I trust you’ll find them to your liking,” Lucius remarked, smoothly, before practically side-stepping him and heading from the room.</p><p>Regulus took a seat by the window and started reading at once, losing himself in the history of the North Berwick witch trials for Merlin-knows how long – long enough, though, for the bile to rise and his knuckles to whiten under the grip he had of the volume he held – until he heard the distinctive <em>click-click-click</em> of women’s heels on the wooden floor that had him reluctantly draw his eyes up from the pages.</p><p>Narcissa smiled at him when he met her eyes, raising an eyebrow; “Trust you, Reg.”</p><p>Regulus smiled, relaxing easily, and gave an unabashed shrug, while Narcissa went on.</p><p>“Party’s over. Aunt Walburga will have the House Elves hunting you down, soon enough.”</p><p>Regulus laughed a little; “I think she knows where I’d be.”</p><p>He got to his feet, snapping the book shut, and headed over, clutching the two that Lucius had given to him earlier.</p><p>Narcissa’s eyes lingered on the titles, her brow furrowing a little while her smile left her.</p><p>“What?” Regulus frowned, at the look she got.</p><p>Narcissa met his eyes, just <em>looking </em>at him for a second.</p><p>But the strangeness in her expression was there and gone in a flash – a blink-and-you’d-miss-it – before she just gave him another smile.</p><p>“Better not keep them waiting.”</p><p>He and his parents were home within the hour, Regulus retiring to his room almost immediately.</p><p>He tossed the books onto his bed as he stepped across the threshold, ready to read once more, but not before he cut out another of the articles that he’d read in the Prophet earlier that morning over breakfast and stuck it up on his bedroom wall.</p><hr/><p><em>Hogwarts, January 1977</em> <em>…</em></p><p>The dog was waiting the first night Regulus came back to Hogwarts.</p><p>At first, Regulus tried not to smile too brightly at the sight of him.</p><p>But then, he realised why the hell not – it wasn’t as if there was anyone around to see it – so he beamed at the dog where it lay on the stone ground of the Astronomy Tower and approached.</p><p>He was sure he wasn’t imagining the little look of longing in its familiar grey as he did.</p><p>They carried on that way, in the months that followed.</p><p>Regulus taking to the Astronomy Tower late at night, where he’d find the great beast of a dog there – as if waiting for him – whenever he could.</p><p>Winter faded away into Spring almost unnoticed, while Regulus sought out companionship that he realised he hadn’t <em>felt – </em>not really – since he was twelve years old.</p><p>Back when he and Sirius would still look one another in the eye and smile.</p><p>Regulus stared down at the last sketch Sirius had made in the book that lay open on his lap – the sketchbook he still brought with him, every night he came up here – at the empty eyes and haunted face.</p><p>The dog – Grim, as Regulus had taken to calling him – turned its head from where it had been looking at the stars, nudging the book with its nose.</p><p>Regulus smiled.</p><p>“Like this, do you?”</p><p>The grey eyes looked back at him.</p><p>Regulus shook his head; “I didn’t do it –“ he glanced back down at it, tracing the image, lightly, with his finger; “ – my brother’s work. He’s…a bit of an idiot.”</p><p>The dog rose from his lounging position and looked at him, as if expecting him to <em>elaborate</em> or something.</p><p>Regulus gave him a wry smile, rolling his eyes.</p><p>“He probably thinks the same thing about me. But…”</p><p>Regulus’ eyes lowered, going from the dog, first to the sketch and then to the books he’d brought up with him – those that Lucius had given to him at Christmas – and shook his head.</p><p>“He’ll see. Sirius…he’s never really cared about any of it but…eventually, the Dark Lord’s gonna bring the wizards out of hiding and it’ll be better. We’ll make our own rules –“ Regulus fingered at the title of the second book about the Statute, one he’d already read twice, now; “ – Make the world the way <em>we </em>want it to be, instead of hiding away like cowards behind the Statute of Secrecy –“</p><p>He broke off when he noticed the look on the dog’s face at his side.</p><p>It could have almost been pity.</p><p>If he wasn’t a dog.</p><p>Regulus scoffed, feeling daft all of a sudden, and he reached up, tickling him behind the ears.</p><p>“What’s that look for, huh? Don’t believe me? –“ he gave the furry face a playful shove; “ – you’ll both see, then.”</p><p>The dog nudged him back, a little more roughly than Regulus expected, and he laughed, shoving him again in turn, the two of them wrestling on the ground.</p><hr/><p><em>Regulus</em> was the idiot.</p><p>Sirius thought it, whenever he eyed his little brother across the Great Hall which – usually – only happened at breakfast, for his brother stayed well clear of him at all other times throughout the day.</p><p>There were two exceptions.</p><p>On the Quidditch field – though, technically, they had very little to do with one another out there, either – or in the Astronomy Tower.</p><p>When he was Padfoot.</p><p>Part of him supposed there was something dishonest, shameful – almost bloody <em>Slytherin</em>, much as the thought made him shudder – about him using his Animagus form to get close to him.</p><p>The other part of him didn’t give a toss.</p><p>It was no coincidence that his brother’s steps were a little lighter, his smiles amongst his housemates that little bit brighter, on the mornings after the two of them had met in the Astronomy Tower the night before.</p><p>That, alone, was more than enough reason for him to keep going.</p><p>So, Sirius would borrow James’ Invisibility Cloak whatever nights he could.</p><p>And Padfoot just kept going back.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Pride</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Hogwarts, June 1977...</em>
</p><p>It had become normality, by the time summer was upon them.</p><p>Regulus finding his way of sneaking up the Astronomy Tower, late at night, armed only with a Prefect Badge as cover and always finding Grim up there waiting for him whenever he did.</p><p>Grim.</p><p>Sirius scoffed a little, lost in his thoughts, just as James’ arm flung around his shoulders.</p><p>“Haven’t seen my cloak in a while, as it happens. Must have misplaced it.”</p><p>Sirius caught Remus’ look of both bafflement and disapproval at the statement, but he was, evidently, in too much of a hurry to comment as he and Peter broke away, heading into the nearby classroom for their Runes class.</p><p>“So, what’s with all the secrecy, huh?” James said, when they were alone as they carried on down the corridor and though his tone was jovial it was low enough that he was careful not to be overheard.</p><p>“What you on about?” Sirius frowned.</p><p>“You’ve been sneaking off with the cloak every night all term –“</p><p>Sirius lifted his eyes to the ceiling, with a grin – as much of an elaboration as any – while James went on.</p><p>“ – obviously meeting some mystery bird or something. Or…multiple birds –“</p><p>James was smirking as he made a show of thinking about it.</p><p>“Oh, you’re onto me, mate,” Sirius said, lifting his shoulders in a shrug; “I’ve commandeered your Invisibility Cloak and turned it into my own self-proclaimed sex-tent –“</p><p>James’ immediate burst of laughter filled the hallway.</p><p>“Didn’t you say when I moved in that ‘what’s yours is mine’?” Sirius winked.</p><p>James nodded, conceding, and held up a hand; “Message received, mate. Do hope you don’t mind giving it a miss tonight, though. What with this thing we’ve got going down –”</p><p>Sirius chuckled, the two of them sharing a conspiring look.</p><p>“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”</p>
<hr/><p>Regulus had been chuckling away to himself when Sirius – Padfoot – made his way across the Astronomy Tower to where his brother was sitting at the furthest alcove.</p><p>“Alright?” Regulus said, his eyes lighting up when he noticed his approach.</p><p>Sirius would never get over it – how bright his little brother’s eyes could shine when he wasn’t frightened of who might see it – and Padfoot immediately curled up, laying his head on his lap.</p><p>Regulus tickled him by the ears and leaned down, nuzzling his nose in against his face, which was so <em>dumb</em>, considering as far as Regulus knew he was nothing more than a gigantic wild dog who could easily kill him with one snap of his jaws.</p><p>But Regulus always was entirely too trusting.</p><p>“Where were you last night, huh?” Regulus asked, referring to the absence – Sirius’ necessary presence by his <em>other </em>brothers’ sides – while he went on, his eyes still bright, shining with obvious mirth; “You missed quite the show.”</p><p>Sirius could feel his – Padfoot’s – tail wagging in delight, as if he were receiving the utmost praise which, he realised, he just might be, now that he realised what had tickled his brother so much.</p><p>“Apparently some students got into the sixth year Slytherin dorms last night – soaked the place and stuck the furniture to the ceiling –“ Regulus told him, little bubbles of laughter escaping him as he did, before he went on; “Snape was spitting feathers about it all night and this morning. Insisted it was my brother and his lot’s work and they ought to be expelled with immediate effect.”</p><p>Padfoot’s tail was going positively wild now with delight.</p><p>Regulus glanced around the room for a second, a smile still playing on his lips, before he leaned closer, speaking into Padfoot’s ear.</p><p>“It was. Never told Snape as much, mind.”</p><p>Sirius felt his heart leap, wondering if Regulus had connected the dots, somehow, simply due to his failure to appear the night before.</p><p>The timing of the absence perhaps too much of a coincidence to be missed.</p><p>But Regulus went on, bringing up a memory that had long been gathering dust.</p><p>“I did it to him once – by accident, obviously –“ Regulus said, smirking, and Padfoot’s head lifted, for Sirius remembered, then, what Regulus was going to relate; “He was being his usual dick-y self and his bed ended up upside down and attached to the ceiling.”</p><p>Regulus smiled, more fondly then as he glanced down.</p><p>“He was <em>almost </em>as pissed off about it as Snape was. Then, he wasn’t. Because that was the first time I’d ever used magic. So, he got spitting cross about it for about a minute then dragged me downstairs and paraded me around the parlour in front of mother and father and told them I was a ‘real wizard’ at last.”</p><p>Regulus fiddled with the corner of one of the pages of the sketchbook he always brought with him.</p><p>“I think it’s the only time he’s ever been proud of me.”</p><p>Sirius didn’t wait any longer, then – it was odd how he still <em>felt </em>everything, even in his Animagus form, just as he would if he were human in that moment – and he pushed in close.</p><p>Regulus – who had been lost in the memory – laughed, his arms coming up and wrapping around him; “Like that story, boy?”</p><p>The two of them stayed like that for a minute, Regulus holding him tight, cuddled into Padfoot’s fur.</p><p>And then his little brother drew back, meeting his eyes – grey for grey – though the shining delight that had been there before had dimmed.</p><p>“I have to go back tomorrow. Home. For the summer.”</p><p>Padfoot simply looked back at him.</p><p>“Don’t worry, alright? I’ll be back in a few weeks.”</p><p>Regulus looked uneasy and Sirius wondered if he was worried to leave Padfoot behind, or if he was worried to go back to Grimmauld Place, or if he was worried that Padfoot wouldn’t be here when he came back.</p><p>It could have been any.</p><p>It could have been them all.</p><p>Regulus swallowed, reaching up to stroke him by the ears.</p><p>“Don’t worry. Alright?”</p><p>Padfoot – Sirius – continued just looking at him for a moment – at the impossible request – and then he leaned back in, nuzzling his brother’s cheek, and Regulus laughed.</p>
<hr/><p>As cold and silent as the winter breaks were after Sirius left, the summers were worse.</p><p>Weeks upon seemingly endless weeks in the stifling grimness of Grimmauld Place, with neither Sirius nor Grim.</p><p>There was only Kreacher for company – so long as his mother didn’t have use of either of them – the house just as devoid of <em>life </em>as it had been, since the day his brother had left.</p><p>When Kreacher wasn’t around, Regulus drowned himself in books about the ancient witch trials and the Statute of Secrecy and articles about the great Dark Lord who his parents spoke so fondly of – sticking the most inspiring ones he could find up on his bedroom wall - and imagined that maybe one day he’d be deemed good enough to join his ranks and make his parents proud.</p><p>They never seemed to be proud.</p><p>Just resigned.</p><p>The only flicker of pride he’d ever seen from either his mother or his father had been for Sirius, when he’d go toe to toe with one of them – with enviable assurance of his own convictions – but they would smother it down and declare disappointment and shame, instead, and, on the worst days, would rap his brother over the knuckles or the hind for his insolence.</p><p>Regulus had never pushed his parents that far.</p><p>He’d never been struck.</p><p>Words cut deep enough for him.</p><p>They all knew that.</p><p>Nor had he ever seen it directed his way before, that tiny flicker of pride they couldn’t help as they glowered back at his brother.</p><p>There was simply resignation that Regulus was the new heir to the House of Black, and that he – too – was failing to live up to expectations, despite him saying and doing everything he knew they wanted to hear.</p><p>Try, try, try.</p><p>And though he never said it out loud – for it seemed much too pathetic a statement to be voiced– the mantra echoed in the chambers of his mind, over and over, <em>‘I’ll be good’. </em></p><p>He would make them proud</p><p>At the very least, he wouldn’t break their hearts.</p><p>He told his parents at the breakfast table that summer that he intended to join the Dark Lord’s ranks and play his part in the cause to bring the wizards out of hiding, once and for all, and take their world back for their own, as his parents had always claimed things <em>should </em>be.</p><p>“The Dark Lord’s inner circle are soldiers, Regulus,” his father had said, with a rare glance over his newspaper his way.</p><p>“I know that, Father.”</p><p>His parents simply looked at him for a moment, as if weighing his words – his worth – in silence.</p><p>And then his father turned back to his paper, while his mother simply scoffed.</p><p>Their doubts of his worth spoken clearly, without a word.</p><p><em>‘I’ll be good’, </em>the silly little mantra said to them, inside his own head.</p><p>Regulus spent as much time as he could with Cissy at Malfoy Manor that summer.</p><p>He turned sixteen as the season drew to a close, two days before his return to Hogwarts, when he finally asked her new husband what he’d have to do to prove himself worthy to the Dark Lord.</p><p>Lucius Malfoy simply smiled and told Regulus to leave the matter with him.</p>
<hr/><p>Sirius was waiting in the Astronomy Tower the first night back, almost forgoing the Welcome Feast entirely – his last – in his eagerness to see his brother again.</p><p>Even across the hall he could see it – the hauntedness in his brother’s expression – and, in a burst of idiocy, he had simply approached and tried to talk to him in human form.</p><p>
  <em>“Reggie.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Regulus looked at him as if he were a stranger – the hollowness of his eyes enough to jolt him into silence – before turning his back.</em>
</p><p>The summer was hot and long and, for the most part, fantastic.</p><p>In the moments he wasn’t fretting about his brother, still stuck back at Grimmauld Place, alone.</p><p>He tried not to think about it.</p><p>And he never, ever talked about it.</p><p>The Potters were everything that Sirius had only ever read about in fairytales.</p><p>The ‘happily ever after’ part, that is, rather than all the obstacles that it took to get there.</p><p>Maybe being taken into their home – their family – was his own fairytale ending, then, after everything that had happened before.</p><p>Sirius swallowed, at his next thought.</p><p>What about Regulus’?</p><p>Footsteps coming up the stairs alerted Sirius – Padfoot – to someone’s approach – Regulus – and his brother’s eyes were both eager and uncertain as they scanned the open space at the top of the tower before he’d even reached the top step.</p><p>His eyes lit up – all the uncertainty quickly dying away – when they landed upon Padfoot where he lay in their ever-chosen alcove.</p><p>“Grim!”</p><p>Regulus – all boyish bright-eyed excitement, that was both familiar and strange to Sirius now – was at his side in an instant, hugging him tight.</p><p>Reunited at last.</p><p>Kind of.</p><p>But even past the brightness of his eyes, the darkness was seeping in.</p><p>The hauntedness that Sirius had recognised across the Great Hall.</p><p>“I can’t believe you’re still here!” Regulus declared, laughingly, still holding on when he spoke.</p><p>Sirius felt the words – the jolt – as if they were a kick in the gut.</p><p>
  <em>I’m always here, little brother.</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Innocence</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Hogwarts, December 1977</em>
</p><p>He always smiled – Regulus – whenever he caught sight of him across the floor of the Astronomy Tower, when realised that he was waiting.</p><p>All boyish excitement and bright eyes as he approached him, so much like he’d been as a child.</p><p>And, in those moments, while he sat there tail wagging as he waited for Regulus to reach him, Sirius could fool himself into believing he had his little brother back.</p><p> </p><hr/><p>
  <em>R.B.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I write to you with regards to your enquiry at the end of the summer season, in order to inform you of our mutual friend’s interest in said request.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Take note, that it has been decided that you shall present yourself before him on the evening of December 29<sup>th</sup>, accompanied by myself.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I trust you will find this arrangement agreeable and that you will treat it with due discretion.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>L.M.</em>
</p><p>Regulus stared at the note in his hands, re-reading the words over and over, almost in a daze.</p><p>The reality that he – Regulus Black – should have anything at all of interest to offer the Dark Lord was something he could barely begin to even comprehend.</p><p>Regulus felt the first prickles of anticipation build up within him, even past his disbelief, past his bloody <em>nerves</em>, as he quickly folded and tucked the note away into his robes with a glance around him to ensure no one had picked up on what he had been reading.</p><p>He was going to be presented to the Dark Lord.</p><p>Or, rather, he was going to present <em>himself </em>to the Dark Lord.</p><p>The very wizard whom his parents – his whole family – had been commending and admiring for years, now.</p><p>Prove himself worthy and fight for what the Blacks had always –</p><p>His eyes – of their own volition – darted in the direction of the Gryffindor table, quickly finding Sirius there huddled in next to the scruffy one, Remus Lupin. The two of them were sitting side-by-side, with their faces close, as if in intimate conversation.</p><p>His brother’s eyes were fond and warm as they looked into the eyes of the boy at his side, his smile softer than Regulus had seen in years.</p><p>But the smile vanished, abruptly, when Sirius’ gaze darted away from Lupin’s face and flicked in Regulus’ direction, finding him staring.</p><p>Sirius drew back from Lupin slightly, straightening up, while the warmth previously in his eyes slipped away and became one of an odd guardedness that Regulus recognised from years before, during some of the nastier exchanges he’d had with their mother when it was clear he was trying to keep something of himself hidden from her.</p><p>Regulus swallowed, lowering his eyes, just as Lupin turned to see what Sirius had been looking at before Regulus got to his feet and headed from the hall.</p><p> </p><hr/><p>“Okay, so that one up there is Cassiopeia.”</p><p>Regulus pointed up at the constellation above, from where he was lying back against the fur of Grim’s lounging form in the Astronomy Tower, before he lowered his hand, slightly.</p><p>“And if you look down here –“</p><p>Regulus frowned.</p><p>“Oh. Wait…no. That’s <em>not </em>Cassiopeia. That one is –“ his point changed direction; “ – over there.”</p><p>There was a sound that could very nearly be a <em>guffaw </em>behind him, and he looked over his shoulder at Grim, who was looking back at him with his mischievous, shining grey eyes, his amusement obvious.</p><p>Regulus raised an eyebrow, twisting slightly but still not getting up from him, and it was odd how easily he found he could banter with a dog the way he couldn’t, really, with anyone else since his brother had left.</p><p>“Oh, you think you can do better, huh?”</p><p>The dog barked.</p><p>A loud, booming eruption that made Regulus wince.</p><p>“Shh!” he whispered; “Someone’ll find you.”</p><p>The dog moved its face in close to Regulus’ and snapped its jaws – playfully – before nudging Regulus’ cheek.</p><p>“Big old sap –” Regulus chuckled, ticking his ears and nuzzling in; “ – Hope you’re listening, though. I’m away again, tomorrow. Christmas.”</p><p>The dog stared back at him, the glimmer of mischief that was there now dimming, as if he understood.</p><p>Regulus smiled and shook his head; “It’s a good thing. Finally. Mother will actually be <em>happy</em>, this time.”</p><p>The dog’s ears went back a bit and Regulus burst out laughing, before he turned back to the sketchbook that had been lying forgotten on his stomach and lifted his quill back up.</p><p>“You know, Grim, from the look on your face –“ Regulus flicked his nose with the feathers at the end of the quill; “ – you’d think you actually knew her.”</p><p>The dog barked again.</p><hr/><p>Regulus drew in a breath, sweaty palms rubbing against the sides of his thighs, as he inwardly told himself to get it together.</p><p>The Dark Lord was on the other side of the door.</p><p>His mother had spoken to him – both stern and proud – as he’d finished doing up his best robes that she’d had carefully hemmed to the correct measurement and then pressed, twice, telling him that he must appear and conduct himself in a manner ‘<em>worthy of the House of Black’</em>.</p><p>Regulus was pretty sure he was failing on that front, already, going by the way Lucius Malfoy’s eyes lifted to the ceiling in exasperation – again – where he stood at his side, awaiting their summons, making no attempt to conceal his own displeasure at Regulus’ blatant nervousness.</p><p>This was obviously a bad idea.</p><p>If anything, rather than making his family proud – by attempting to uphold the Black family name and their expectations – he was simply going to shame them, mortify them by being deemed <em>unworthy </em>of being recruited by the wizard who was key to the world that they all so keenly advocated for.</p><p>Another family embarrassment. Another stain on their name.</p><p>But, then, <em>worse</em>, if he were honest about it.</p><p>Because even though Sirius had run from them, Regulus was certain that if he were here, right now, there’d be no question as to whether or not the Dark Lord would want his brother – all fire and passion and fight – on his side.</p><p>The thought made Regulus’ palms sweaty again and he rubbed, once more, against the fabric of his robes to dry them off.</p><p>“Speak only when spoken to,” Lucius said, lowly, at his side.</p><p>“I know.”</p><p>“The Dark Lord is already keenly interested in your recruitment. You need only prove that you are willing and able.”</p><p>Regulus nodded again, saying nothing for a moment, as he mulled over the words.</p><p>Regulus frowned.</p><p>“Willing and able to do what?”</p><p>Lucius’ chest inflated outwards as he closed his eyes.</p><p>The door in front of them swung open, revealing a dark room beyond it, and someone in a daft, creepy silver mask appeared, bidding them inside.</p><p>Regulus drew in a breath, steadying his nerves, and stepped into the darkness.</p><hr/><p>Regulus woke with a gasp.</p><p>“Sh. Hey.”</p><p>It took a second – a few of them – for Regulus’ to make sense of who had spoken and where he was.</p><p>“Cissy,” he said, only realising then that his voice was hoarse – his throat <em>burning –</em> and he winced at the unexpected jolts of pain that fired through his limbs as he pushed himself up onto his elbows.</p><p>His eyes darted around the parlour of Malfoy Manor from where he was laid up on the sofa; “What…what happened?”</p><p>Narcissa gave him a lopsided smile, her voice as soft as it always was when she spoke to him, as if he were still just a child.</p><p>“You won’t remember. That’s how it is the first time.”</p><p>Regulus swallowed, past the burn, frowningly; “He obliviated m –“</p><p>He broke off in a coughing fit, unable to say more than a few words, and he wondered if that was because he’d been given something – a potion – or if it was just that, for some reason, he’d been screaming.</p><p>The ache of his joints with each cough told him that, likely, it was the latter.</p><p>In which case, he’d surely failed.</p><p>He felt his heart sink at the thought. Wondering, in an immediate panic, what he was supposed to tell his mother and father.</p><p>“Here,” Narcissa said, as she handed him a glass of water.</p><p>Regulus drank it slowly, his mind buzzing while the coolness of it soothed his throat, before he moved, again, tentatively trying out his arms and legs.</p><p>They all seemed to still be in one piece, at least.</p><p>“Were you there?” Regulus asked, looking at her, uneasily; “Was he –“</p><p>“It has been agreed between yourself and the Dark Lord –“ Lucius’ voice spoke up, unexpectedly, from the doorway, making Regulus’ head snap in his direction; “ – that you shall report to him once more in April.”</p><p>Regulus looked back at him, not entirely sure what that meant.</p><p>Lucius smiled – which was more than a little disconcerting – and inclined his chin.</p><p>“Congratulations, Regulus. You’ve passed the first test.”</p><p>Regulus simply stared back at him as the words sunk in.</p><p>His throat still burned, and his limbs still ached, and he wasn’t quite sure if he was even up to even standing in that moment.</p><p>But then he thought of the pride his parents would finally, <em>finally </em>have for him, when he returned back home and told them the news.</p><p>And then he smiled.</p><hr/><p>There was something strange about Regulus when he came to the Astronomy Tower, the first night back after the Christmas holidays.</p><p>Sirius couldn’t quite put his finger on it.</p><p>He just knew that something was…off.</p><p>But it was still just Reg, whose eyes shone bright along with his smile when he saw him across the tower.</p><p>And he was still as innocently naïve as ever.</p><p>“Hey, boy,” Regulus greeted Padfoot with a tight hug, making it obvious that he’d missed him.</p><p>But he no longer seemed surprised to find him there.</p><p>As if his little brother had come to depend on the great mutt – that was his brother – to just be there, always, whenever he came up here.</p><p>The thought made Sirius’ stomach sink, knowing that five short months from now he wouldn’t be.</p><p>He’d be gone – Padfoot along with him – having graduated, and Regulus would be left behind.</p><p>Again.</p><p>Padfoot curled around Regulus where he sat and cuddled in close, the thought of his brother being left truly alone in the world sickening.</p><p>Regulus smiled at him, tickling him at the ears – though his eyes seemed a little less bright for a second, as if he’d gone away somewhere for a moment, like Sirius had, lost in thought – before he opened up the sketchbook on his lap.</p><p>His brother’s eyes lingered on the sketch that Sirius had done of him some years before – they always did linger on that particular one, far longer than any of the others, the vain little sod – before he flicked the pages to the first empty spot and started to write.</p><p>Nonsense words that Sirius had stopped bothering to read now, recognising them all from the ridiculous talks around the breakfast table and at all the posh, poncy parties that his parents would drag them to, which he would rather not think about – ever – but especially when he was there with Regulus, trying to remember when times were better and to make things a bit better for his little brother, now.</p><p>The boy that walked the halls of Hogwarts – looking both small and lost and yet with his chin held high – seemed to vanish whenever he walked across the Astronomy Tower floor.</p><p>A glimpse at who he was and should be. Unbroken.</p><p>It carried on like that for days and weeks and months, each of them seeking one another out beneath the stars.</p><p>All the while Sirius was acutely aware of the fact that time was rapidly ticking down, and said unwelcome fact only made him seek out his brother more frequently.</p><p>Some nights, such as this one, Padfoot would wait for hours in the Astronomy Tower and Regulus wouldn’t – couldn’t – come, and, so, he’d transform back and just stare at the stars by himself and remember when he was a child – when they both were – and they would sit toe-to-toe on the windowsill at Grimmauld Place and make wishes on those they’d happen to see shooting through the night sky.</p><p>“That’s not what you really wish for though, is it?” Regulus had asked him, innocently, when Sirius had wished for a signed Quidditch trophy from one of the players he’d been enamoured with at the time.</p><p>“What else would I want?” Sirius had asked, guardedly.</p><p>“I dunno. Something different.”</p><p>Sirius had shifted on the sill, though he eyed his brother closely; “Maybe not. What do <em>you</em> really wish for?”</p><p>The question had made Regulus look away, his blush obvious, even in the moonlight.</p><p>“What?” Sirius nudged his brother’s toe with his own, when curiosity got the better of him.</p><p>And then there was only silence between them, until Regulus’ voice had spoken softly, unsurely.</p><p>“Just to be enough. That’s all.”</p><p>“Enough for what?”</p><p>Regulus hadn’t answered.</p><p>He’d just leaned his head back against the window frame, his eyes going back to the sky.</p><p>Sirius, aged nine, didn’t get it then.</p><p>But he did now.</p><p>“Aha!”</p><p>Sirius jumped, drawn from the memory, by the sound of James’ voice and he spun around where he sat with a frown.</p><p>“Prongs – what the hell?”</p><p>James strode up to where he was sitting, unabashedly, with his arms crossed and eyebrows raised; “You know, you had me pretty convinced, Pads. That whole nonsense cover of yours. But with Moony tucked up tight these past few weeks, and you still skulking off, I was pretty convinced you weren’t being entirely honest with me.”</p><p>Sirius scoffed, lifting his shoulders unapologetically; “I was obviously messing with you, mate.”</p><p>“So, what, you just hang out here all on your lonesome –“</p><p>Sirius had started to laugh but he caught himself, at the sound of loudening footsteps on the stairs.</p><p>Sirius leapt to his feet, a finger to his lips, before he quickly covered James’ mouth with his hand.</p><p>James shut up, frowning at him over Sirius’ palm.</p><p>“Prongs,” was all Sirius had time to say by way of explanation.</p><p>He transformed into Padfoot.</p><p>James looked baffled for a second – but he knew well enough what Sirius had meant – and he did as he said, becoming Prongs, just seconds before Regulus’ head became visible as he hurried up the steps.</p><p>“Grim!” Regulus said, in delight, eyes wide when they found him waiting; “Sorry I’m so –“</p><p>Regulus broke off, skidding to an almost comical halt when he took notice of the huge stag that accompanied him, his eyes wide like saucers and his mouth agape as he stared at them.</p><p>Amused – and caught out – Padfoot took a step towards Regulus and Regulus, after a few seconds of looking back at forth between them, cautiously approached; “Um…friend of yours?”</p><p>Padfoot shoved Prongs with his snout – showing off how entirely unintimidating his companion was – and Regulus smiled a little as he reached them, his eyes all for Prongs with a look of boyish wonder on his face.</p><p>“Huh. Wow,” Regulus said, sounding as amazed as he looked, before he reached up shyly and touched Prongs tentatively at the neck.</p><p>When Prongs allowed it, bowing his head, slightly, Regulus smiled fully, giving a chuckle, and stroked down his neck more assuredly, his eyes darting over him with ongoing astonishment.</p><p>And then Regulus turned his head to look at Padfoot, where he now sat watching them, and raised his eyebrows.</p><p>“Wish I had friends like yours, Grim.”</p><p>Sirius felt a jolt deep within him at the words.</p><p>
  <em>I wish you did too, little brother.</em>
</p><p>
  
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>It's a little early! Hope you guys enjoyed this one!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Forsaken</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Hogwarts, 1978…</em>
</p><p>Sirius didn’t talk about it.</p><p>And James wouldn’t push.</p><p>The flippant, cutting remarks made about the family he’d run from – his mother, his father, the whole shoddy lot of them – had always rolled so easily off the tongue.</p><p>But Sirius never talked about his brother.</p><p>So, after Regulus left the night that he came across them both in the Astronomy Tower – his eyes wide and full of awe for Prongs the entire time he was there – Sirius simply transformed back, not meeting James’ eyes as he did the same, and he shook out the Invisibility Cloak before the two of them headed back to the Gryffindor Tower, side-by-side, without a word shared between them.</p><p>Though it was obvious, with every step that they took, that James was itching to say <em>something.</em></p><p>Sirius didn’t go back the next night – due to embarrassment or shame, he wasn’t entirely sure – but he couldn’t keep away any longer than that, and Padfoot crossed the floor of the Astronomy Tower once more, two nights later, finding Regulus waiting in the same alcove as always.</p><p>“Huh!” Regulus – whose eyes had been intently upon the sketchbook on his lap – immediately perked up when he noticed him approach; “There you are!”</p><p>Sirius felt a pang of regret that he hadn’t come the night before – that Reg had been left waiting – while his brother glanced in the direction from where he'd come.</p><p>“Just you tonight, boy?”</p><p>Regulus looked disappointed.</p><p>It was exactly the sort of thing James would tease Sirius mercilessly about, if he <em>were </em>willing to talk about this. How much more impressive his Animagus form was, compared to the rest of them.</p><p>Padfoot merely nuzzled in and Regulus chuckled, giving him a squeeze, and it was then that Sirius noticed the page was open on something different this time.</p><p>Not on the final sketch that he had made of Regulus, nor on a fresh page covered in whatever nonsense Regulus happened to be writing that night.</p><p>No.</p><p>Instead, another sketch was before him, and Sirius felt a jolt of panic when he quickly realised what it was.</p><p>It was <em>them</em>.</p><p>The Marauders.</p><p>Wormy the Rat. Prongs the Stag. Padfoot the Dog.</p><p>And Remus – just Remus – there on the page.</p><p>Regulus noticed him looking, and lifted his hand to the page, his finger tracing the lines of the stag; “You knew my brother, didn’t you?”</p><p>Padfoot just sat there, watching the motions of his finger, as it left the lines of Prongs and touched to the sketch of the dog there beside it.</p><p>“This is you, right?”</p><p>Regulus looked at him, with a gaze so innocent, so bloody <em>pure</em>, that it hurt.</p><p>“Did he come up here first? Before I did?” Regulus glanced to the side, at the sky; “He liked the stars, too. Before everything... We’d watch them, together.”</p><p>There was such longing in his little brother’s eyes – in his voice – that Sirius just stared back at him, wishing things were different.</p><p>
  <em>“There’s one! Make a wish, Reg.” His own voice, from years before came back to him – so far gone – and his brother’s giggles followed as he pointed at the flash of a star shooting by the bedroom window.</em>
</p><p>Regulus looked back at Padfoot, where he remained still, lost in the memory.</p><p>And the innocent longing in his brother’s eyes gave way to concern, to <em>compassion</em> for the great mutt that was sat, glumly, at his side.</p><p>“Hey –“ Regulus’ hand came up, giving him a gentle stroke by the ear, as he spoke, softly, as if Padfoot were wounded; “ – don’t be sad, Boy.”</p><p>Regulus’ eyes lowered.</p><p>His little brother was the wounded one, then. His voice lower at his next words – barely more than a murmur – as if he were speaking a forbidden secret; revealing a truth that he daren’t speak before.</p><p>“He left me, too.”</p><p>The words cut deeper than any vicious remark of their mother’s ever could.</p><hr/><p>It happened again, just the same as before, at Easter.</p><p>Regulus woke with a spasm and a gasp, finding himself in the parlour of Malfoy Manor, under the wary eyes of his youngest cousin.</p><p>Narcissa spoke in that reassuring, soft, soft way that she always did to him – still the baby of the family in her eyes – before handing over a glass of water, while Lucius told him, coolly, from the doorway that the recent ‘endeavour’ had been a success.</p><p>“It has been agreed between yourself and the Dark Lord that you shall return before him once more in the summer. For your final assessment.”</p><p>Regulus swallowed, ignoring the sharp burn of his throat as he did, and took a sip from the glass in his hand – as casually as he could, trying not to show any pain – and nodded; “Alright. Then I…does that mean…?”</p><p>His voice trailed off and he shifted – started to – nervously, but when he did another jolt of familiar pain shot through his limbs, stilling him, and almost made him groan aloud.</p><p>Lucius said nothing more, just gave a single nod, before he turned and left him there with Narcissa.</p><p>It was enough a confirmation as any.</p><p>Regulus told his parents – who were waiting – immediately upon his return, all the while ignoring every twinge and sear of pain that coursed through him with each movement that he made.</p><p>His father gave him a look of satisfaction.</p><p>His mother alternated between fawning over him, praising his success, and issuing warnings and instructions on how to conduct himself next time.</p><p>He’d be a Death Eater by the end of the year.</p><p>By the summer, even, if all went well.</p><p>The youngest that had ever been recruited.</p><p>Regulus mused in his room that night with Kreacher, that it had almost been <em>easy, </em>what he’d had to do to finally earn his parents’ pride.</p><hr/><p>The excitement within the Great Hall was even greater this year, than it had been on any other that Regulus could remember, on the penultimate day of term.</p><p>And the rowdiness this time was particularly evident at the furthest side of the hall - at the Gryffindor Table, of course - for his brother and his lot had officially graduated that afternoon and they always <em>did</em> make a point of causing as big a scene as possible, wherever they went.</p><p>“Hold on to your bloody hats, boys! This is it!” Sirius’ voice could be heard, clear as day, even from the Slytherin table at the other side of the room.</p><p>Regulus eyed him, with his head still dipped over the sketchbook in front of him, easily hidden amongst the crowd.</p><p>He wondered if the life would be sucked out of Hogwarts when his brother left the place, in the same way that it had been when he’d slipped, silently, from Grimmauld Place.</p><p>Nothing more than the ghost of his presence left behind; whispers and stories still told long after he’d gone.</p><p>They’d be favourable here, Regulus supposed, not like the words that were still spoken at home; his brother's name unexpectedly dropped into conversations seemingly out of nowhere, frequently reminding him of the shoes he now had to fill and the example that he was never to follow.</p><p>Sirius' betrayal was a spectre that hung over the household, day in, day out.</p><p>Reminders of it in the lightened shades of wallpaper around the newly hung picture frames on the walls, that now took the place of the others that had once housed those with his brother.</p><p>They were in the cracks on the wall in his father’s study that had appeared there, that final day, after Sirius had been hauled in by the scruff and the door slammed in Regulus' face.</p><p>In the closed door to the bedroom that remained unused – and untouched – exactly as Sirius has left it.</p><p>It had been over two years.</p><p>Still, Regulus remembered everything; the uncertainty and the panic and the astonishment the day he’d woken and realised his brother had actually <em>gone</em>.</p><p>He'd never so much as threatened to do so.</p><p>He was just there one day; gone the next.</p><p>Regulus watched, now, as Potter slung an arm around Sirius’ shoulders and drew him in close, the two of them speaking in that irritatingly familiar, conspiring manner of theirs, that Regulus had noticed from the first day that Sirius had introduced the other boy to him on the train to Hogwarts.</p><p>They’d always been like that.</p><p>For years, he’d watched James Potter flash his smiles at his brother and notice how his brother’s eyes would sparkle with matching mischief at whatever inside joke they’d shared.</p><p>He’d watched as they lounged on the grass by the lake, several feet away from him, with the others they ran with - Lupin and Pettigrew - sharing laughter and banter and boredom. Never even noticing that he was there.</p><p>He’d watched Potter run up after Sirius in the corridors before he’d jump up onto his back or catch him in a headlock or haul him into the nearest classroom.</p><p>He’d watched him shoot his brother a wink across the Quidditch field whenever Gryffindor scored more points.</p><p>He’d watched him slap him on the back.</p><p>And plant smackers of a kiss on his cheek as they celebrated various victories, such as this one.</p><p>The day they graduated from Hogwarts.</p><p>Tomorrow, they’d depart on the train for the last time, and take on the big bad world, Potter and Black, side-by-side.</p><p>Regulus got a wry smile at the thought, glancing away.</p><p>He’d never understood it – still couldn’t – how someone could turn their back on their family.</p><p>On their own blood.</p><p>Family was all that Regulus had ever known.</p><p>But the writing had been on the wall from the start.</p><p>So much so, that it was ridiculous that Regulus had been so stunned to find his brother gone.</p><p>Sirius had found another one.</p><p>Another family.</p><p>Another brother.</p><p>Somewhere else to belong.</p><p>And he knew, as his eyes went back to where he stood, that he’d never seen his brother happier – in all the years that they’d been together, in Grimmauld Place – than he was in the moments that he was with James Potter.</p><p>Sirius’ gaze suddenly flicked from Potter’s face, unexpectedly meeting Regulus’ across the hall.</p><p>The laughter died on his lips, his smile slowly slipping away, when he noticed him.</p><p>The warmth in his eyes went with it.</p><p>Figures.</p><p>Regulus held his look for only a moment– just long enough to notice Sirius take a step in his direction – before he snapped the sketchbook in front of him shut, shoving it into his bag and got to his feet, leaving the Hall.</p><p>He hadn’t really let himself feel it before, he realised, as he climbed the stairs to the Astronomy Tower in a daze and made his way to the usual alcove.</p><p>He had never let himself feel the hurt.</p><p>He’d felt the betrayal. The anger. The <em>resentment</em> at what had happened.</p><p>But the <em>loss </em>was something he’d pushed back against. Refusing to let the thought slip passed the walls of consciousness.</p><p>Until now.</p><p>It came to him, abruptly – an unbidden wave of grief – as he drew his knees to his chest.</p><p>After tomorrow he’d, most likely, never see his brother again in his life.</p><p>The Hogwarts Express would drop them off at Kings Cross Station the next evening and that would be it.</p><p>Regulus would go back to Grimmauld Place and the cold, steely stares and words and expectation of their parents, while his brother stepped out into the world, smiling.</p><p>Free.</p><p>Regulus bit down on his lip, hard enough to draw blood, before he yanked open his bag and hauled out the sketchbook, an ink jar and a quill, turning to any blank page that he could find.</p><hr/><p>Padfoot crept, slowly, across the floor of the Astronomy Tower to where Regulus was sitting, knees drawn tightly to his chest and his head buried in the arms that held them there.</p><p>Sirius knew, even before Regulus’ face lifted – despite the fact his brother made nary a sound – that he was crying.</p><p>His brother had always wept silently, bearing his emotions as if they were something shameful, as their mother would have him believe.</p><p>Sirius caught sight of what was written in the sketchbook at his brother’s feet.</p><p>Just a single word.</p><p>
  <em>Sirius.</em>
</p><p>The start of a letter that his brother couldn’t find the words to write.</p><p>A pathetic whine sounded – it took a second for Sirius to realise it came from himself, from Padfoot – and Regulus lifted his head to look at him, only then noticing that he was there.</p><p>He gave him a small, sad smile – his eyes glistening and his cheeks wet in the moonlight – before he reached up to pet him by the ears as he shook his head.</p><p>“I’m okay, boy,” he whispered.</p><p>And it was so bloody <em>Regulus </em>of him, to try to dismiss his own pain while attempting to diminish another’s.</p><p>Padfoot pushed in closer, and his little brother’s arms came up to hold him tight.</p><hr/><p>Platform Nine and Three Quarters was bustling as the Hogwarts students departed from the train, they and their parents and siblings hurrying up and down the platform seeking to reunite with their loved ones.</p><p>Sirius’ eyes sought Regulus, once again, as they had done, futilely, that morning at Hogwarts, as he simply let Remus lead him by the hand after the others while his eyes darted throughout the area.</p><p>He caught sight of him, finally, when he stepped out of the furthest carriage from where Sirius’ had been and he immediately let go of Remus’ hand – <em>“give me a minute”</em> – and he crossed the distance between them, pushing down any hesitation or pride that threatened to rise up and stop him.</p><p>His brother words after Christmas still haunted him, even now.</p><p>His brother’s tears – the single written word, his name, on the sketchbook – would haunt him <em>forever </em>if he didn’t do this.</p><p>“Reg –“ he grasped him by the shoulder, pulling him roughly to a halt, and Regulus turned startled, bewildered eyes upon him when he realised who’d stopped him.</p><p>Regulus shook his head, his mouth opening as if to speak.</p><p>“I left <em>them,” </em>Sirius said, before he could; “I left our parents. I left that house. And that <em>family</em>. And their ridiculous, backwards, <em>disgusting</em> way of life –”</p><p>Sirius shook his head.</p><p>“But I didn’t leave <em>you</em>, Reg.”</p><p>Regulus’ lifted his chin, his eyes narrowing, slightly. And his brother barely gave him an inch but what he <em>did </em>give him - a look with a tiny spark of hope and longing - was enough.</p><p>“I’m your <em>brother</em>,” Sirius asserted, just as he caught sight of something out the corner of his eye, making him glance sidewards and catch sight of their mother approaching, her eyes flashing with that <em>glint</em> that Sirius would never forget.</p><p>A wave of panic, of urgency, came over him and he grasped Regulus by the shoulders, turning him slightly, before he reached into his robes and shoved the piece of parchment he pulled from them into Regulus’ palm when he knew she wouldn’t see.</p><p>“If you need me, this is where I’ll be.”</p><p>Regulus frowned, eyes on the parchment, with a look as if he’d never seen <em>parchment </em>before.</p><p>“Don’t be an idiot, Reg.”</p><p>Sirius didn’t wait for him to speak, turning and walking away – briskly – and returning to where Moony still was with the others across the platform, before his mother could reach them.</p><p>“Alright?” Remus asked with a curious look while James pointedly didn’t even acknowledge that he’d either left or who he’d gone to see.</p><p>“Never better,” Sirius said, cocking his eyebrow, briefly, but the façade wavered, somewhat, when he felt Remus’ hand slip back into his.</p><p>He swallowed, risking a glance back to where Regulus stood, now joined by their mother and he found her dark, menacing gaze upon them as she eyed him where he stood, hand-in-hand with Remus.</p><p>Sirius held her look, lifting his chin and drawing Moony closer, and he couldn’t help but be a <em>little bit </em>amused and satisfied, when he saw her lip curl slightly and the dimple on her cheek twitch – something that always had precipitated an outburst in years long since passed – if only because his mother was so focused on her eldest son and whom he had fallen for, that she didn’t notice her youngest slipping the parchment Sirius had just given him into the pocket of his robes.</p><hr/><p>Regulus burned the note that Sirius gave him.</p><p>He knew better than to have something like <em>that </em>lying around the house or on his person.</p><p>So, he burned it but not before he read it, unable to help himself.</p><p>He shouldn’t have.</p><p>He’d remember it now.</p><p>Regulus never forgets.</p><p>There was a <em>tap, tap, tap</em> at the window and Regulus glanced up from the charred remains of the scorched parchment that now lay on his desk.</p><p>Lucius Malfoy’s owl.</p><p>Regulus swallowed down his nerves, before he blew at the small mound of dust in front of him, scattering the pile and getting to his feet to let it in.</p><hr/><p>With each day – each week – that passed, Sirius’ hopes for his brother dwindled, bit-by-bit, until nothing was left but despair.</p><p>He drew in a breath, while those in the flat – his and Remus’ own, newly rented accommodation – laughed and danced and drank, scattered throughout all the rooms in the residence.</p><p>Sirius sat, miserably, by the window - not feeling the festivities whatsoever - and watched the rain and the flashes of lightening as he downed another drink.</p><p>“Y’know, they say if the wind changes, your face’ll be stuck like that,” James remarked, with a point at his face, as he pulled up a chair and sat across from him.</p><p>Sirius eyed him; “Who says that?”</p><p>“Muggles. So, I’m learning. Courtesy of the new Mrs. Petunia Dursley. Charming woman.”</p><p>Sirius accioed a bottle, making to pour himself another drink, but then – thinking better of it – took a swig straight from the bottle, instead, ignoring the way James’ eyes lingered on him in obvious concern.</p><p>“Alphard’s obituary -" James began, " - It was dragonshit, I know –“                                                            </p><p>Sirius scoffed, glancing away – in no mood to talk about <em>that; </em>yet another of the Blacks’ appalling record for treating their own family members like shite when they failed to toe the line – and shook his head; “No surprises there, mate. What else would you expect from the <em>Noble</em> and <em>Most Ancient</em> House?”</p><p>James simply stared back at him.</p><p>Sirius took another drink, his mind still on his brother.</p><p>On his lost looks and his whispered words and his silent tears and the knowledge that he was back there, right now, with <em>them</em> when he could – and <em>should – </em>be right here.</p><p>Haunted by the knowledge that he wouldn’t be coming.</p><p>That he’d <em>failed</em> him.</p><p>Sirius smirked, humourlessly, shaking his head.</p><p>“The kind of people who giggle over a glass of brandy about the muggles who’ve been killed just down the road,” Sirius muttered, his bitterness increasing with each word spoken; “The kind of people who disown their own brothers and sisters, their own <em>children, </em>and think that somehow makes themselves <em>better</em>.”</p><p>Sirius’ hand tightened around the bottleneck – <em>“he left me, too” – </em>as the bitterness turned inwards, and his eyes found Remus – good, sweet Remus – who was smiling and laughing with Lily in the kitchen.</p><p>“The kind of people who get so blind with hate that they’d betray their best mate and send someone down a tunnel to meet a werewolf.”</p><p>James moved, then, learning forward so that Sirius was forced to meet his eyes, and his gaze was unwavering as he said, with certainty.</p><p>“You are <em>nothing </em>like them, Sirius.”</p><p>Sirius held his look for a second, before his eyes lowered, finding the carpeted floor at their feet.</p><p>He wasn’t so sure.</p><p>He could be bitter. He could be so overcome with spite and with ferocity, just like the rest of them. He could be dark, in ways that made James and Remus and Peter look at him as if he were a stranger.</p><p>He could hate. He could hurt.</p><p>As much as he tried to be <em>better</em>, sometimes, he wondered if it was something he’d ever, really, be able to escape.</p><p>Being a Black.</p><p>It was an unwelcome thought that had come to him, every night when he’d be staying with the Potters, in their home that was so full of love and laughter and warmth; that had welcomed him with open arms, and had treated him as if he were one of their own.</p><p>A family, as it should be.</p><p>And yet, even now, after years of it, it still felt foreign to him.</p><p>Warmth and love.</p><p>Even on those occasions where he felt it, it didn't feel quite real; it was something novel, something <em>precious</em>, as ridiculous as that sounded.</p><p>With James and Peter and the way they’d laugh and muck about right along with him.</p><p>With Moony and their lazy whispers and tangled limbs in the mornings.</p><p>With his brother, under the stars in the Astronomy Tower.</p><p>Sirius swallowed, meeting James’ eyes.</p><p>“You know someone who’s nothing like my family, Prongs?”</p><p>James’ eyebrows raised, only slightly, offering no guess or suggestion.</p><p>“My brother.”</p><p>If James was surprised at the mention – at this forbidden turn of conversation – he didn’t show it.</p><p>He just sat there, silently, as Sirius went on.</p><p>“No matter how hard they’ve tried to mould him into another one of the monsters that they expect us all to be; he’ll never be one of them,” Sirius scoffed; “We all know it.”</p><p>Sirius lifted the bottle to his lips, taking a long drink, before capping it off.</p><p>“Only person who <em>doesn’t</em> is the little idiot, himself.”</p><p>James said nothing.</p><p>Just listened.</p><p>Sirius shook his head, his eyes going back to the storm beyond the window.</p><p>“And he’ll bend himself over backwards for them until he breaks.”</p><hr/><p>It happened again, just the same as before, in the summer.</p><p>Regulus woke with a spasm and a gasp on the sofa in Malfoy Manor, with no recollection of how he’d gotten there.</p><p>And that was when he realised that something was different this time.</p><p>His throat still burned – as raw as it had been before – and his limbs still ached with every movement that he made.</p><p>But, this time, there was a heat – not quite a burn – but a <em>presence </em>that made him frown, ignoring the glass of water that Cissy held out his way, as he reached for the sleeve of his left arm, pulling it up.</p><p>And when he did he was met with the sight of the black, twisting, <em>living</em> emblem that he’d only ever seen in pictures in the newspaper articles, embedded there, deeply rooted, within his arm.</p><p>The Dark Lord’s Mark.</p><hr/><p>Regulus hurried up the steps of the Astronomy Tower, eagerly, on his first night back at Hogwarts after the summer, taking the steps two at a time.</p><p>He skidded to a halt when he finally reached the top.</p><p>His eyes went first to the alcove - finding it empty - before scanning the room.</p><p>Every corner</p><p>Every shadow.</p><p>But Grim wasn’t there.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I know *sobs*! I hope you all enjoyed this one, despite this tiptoe into angst-territory!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Folly</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Warning for homophobic comment (side-character).</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Grimmauld Place, June 1969…</em>
</p><p>Regulus – seven years old – shuffled, nervously, where he stood, barefoot, in his father’s study.</p><p>More than a little baffled to be in there at all.</p><p>It was the first time in his life that he’d been invited in – despite his brother’s fairly regular summons –and his eyes darted around the room, curiously, taking in every new feature, every strange object, his gaze lingering upon each of the two portraits that were hung up on the wall behind the desk, while those within it blinked and lifted their chins in haughty disapproval at his unabashed stare.</p><p>“ – your mother and I have agreed that you are to accompany me, this afternoon, in your brother’s stead.”</p><p>Regulus’ eyes snapped back to his father at that, frowningly.</p><p>“Me?”</p><p>“Indeed,” his father said, standing up from his chair and moving around the desk to approach him; “It is your responsibility to be available to stand in lieu of your brother, on the rare occasion where he is unavailable to carry out his duties, himself.”</p><p>Regulus’ frown deepened.</p><p>“Oh –“ he was suddenly alarmed, even more so than he’d been when Sirius hadn’t turned up to breakfast that morning; “ – Is…is he alright?”</p><p>“He is indisposed.”</p><p>“B…because of last night?” Regulus went on, hesitantly; “I heard the shouting –“</p><p>“Shouting?” his father interrupted him, an eyebrow raised, as if this were news to him.</p><p>“I heard mother –“ Regulus said, though the look on his father’s face made it come out, uncertain; “From my room –“</p><p>“Hm. Must have been another of your nightmares, Son,” his father said, brusquely; “You do have quite the imagination.”</p><p>Regulus pursed his lips together, silencing himself, knowing better than to say anything more.</p><p>Even if he <em>was </em>certain he’d heard them.</p><p>“I trust I needn’t remind you that it is a great privilege to be granted admittance to these events. And I expect you to conduct yourself accordingly. In a manner that is befitting of a Black.”</p><p>Regulus nodded, straightening up, instinctively – proudly – as he knew he should.</p><p>“Yes, Sir.”</p><p>His father eyed him, looking neither happy nor like he believed him.</p><p>Regulus drew in a breath and said more certainly – with <em>conviction – </em>as his cousins and Sirius would do.</p><p>“I’ll be good.”</p><hr/><p>
  <em>Grimmauld Place, June 1979…</em>
</p><p>Regulus tossed the sketchbook onto his bed as he stepped into the room, his bag still slung up over his shoulder.</p><p>He’d <em>aimed</em> for it, at least, but a corner hit first and, so, it bounced and tumbled back, landing on the floor.</p><p>The pages fell open on the sketches of the animals that Sirius had made some years before and Regulus hesitated in his steps, his eyes upon the unexpected images where they now lay at his feet.</p><p>On the rat that he’d never met.</p><p>The stag that he’d only seen once.</p><p>And Grim.</p><p>Regulus shook his head and flicked his wand, the pages turning in flurry, until they landed on something or other that <em>he’d</em> recently written instead, and stepped over it, making his way further into the room.</p><p>It had been a year, now, since he’d last seen Grim.</p><p>Six months since he’d stopped going up the Astronomy Tower, where he’d sit and wait in the dark, telling himself <em>‘just one more night’ – </em>every night <em>– </em>and convincing himself that the dog would actually come back.</p><p>Regulus quashed any and all thoughts about him, quickly – it wasn’t like he wasn’t used to being left behind, after all – and his eyes went to the articles that were still pinned up on the walls over his bed.</p><p>Those of Dark Lord’s mission – to finally bring the wizards out of hiding – that, soon, Regulus would be fully apart of.</p><p>This was it.</p><p>He’d graduated the day before.</p><p>Now, he’d finally be able to take his place in the Circle. Take on missions that weren’t just smuggling dusty old books out of the Restricted Section of Hogwarts or eavesdropping on his classmates and professors for any information he could gather about this <em>Order of the Phoenix</em> that he’d been told to listen out for.</p><p>A knock at the door drew him from his musings, finding Kreacher standing there, giving a low – unnecessary – bow; “Kreacher has come to tell Master Regulus that he has a visitor. A most important visitor, Mistress Black says. Mr. Lucius Malfoy.”</p><p>Regulus let the bag he held slip to the floor with a thud and immediately followed.</p><p>The Dark Lord didn’t waste any time.</p><p>“Ah. Regulus,” Lucius said, as soon as Regulus entered the parlour, looking as if he’d been waiting a while – judging by refreshment tray that was near-empty on the side table – and gave him that smooth smile of his, as he inclined his head; “Narcissa has asked that I pass on our congratulations.”</p><p>When Regulus just stared back at him in bemusement, Lucius raised an eyebrow.</p><p>“On your graduation,” Lucius said; “Of course.”</p><p>“Oh. Thanks,” Regulus cleared his throat, quickly hiding his disappointment; “I thought the Dark Lord might have asked you –“</p><p>“Your thoughts were accurate,” Lucius interrupted; “I come bearing information regarding your initial assignment.”</p><p>A thrill of anticipation and nerves came over him– a little flip of his stomach – while he waited to hear what it was.</p><p>Lucius’ lip curled, in a grim sort-of challenge.</p><p>“You wouldn’t happen to have a way of tracking down that wayward brother of yours, would you?”</p><p>Regulus’ stomach dropped.</p><hr/><p>The flat was a <em>dump.</em></p><p>Sirius stumbled, blearily, out of the bedroom, in a rush so that whoever the dunderhead was that had turned up at eight o’ clock in the morning wouldn’t knock again and wake up Moony.</p><p>The full moon the night before had been the roughest yet, since leaving Hogwarts.</p><p>Sirius’ foot caught on a few of Remus’ <em>many </em>books that were piled up next to the sofa – the racket of them scattering across the floor defeating the purpose of his dash – as he made his across the living room to the door, flinging it open.</p><p>But his irritated greeting died on his lips at seeing who was stood on the other side of the threshold.</p><p>His seventeen-year-old brother.</p><p>“Reg.”</p><p>Regulus gave him a nod.</p><p>Though he didn’t say anything.</p><p>Just stood there, looking more than a little bit out of place standing in the corridor of the muggle residence that he and Remus lived in, with a look as if he’d rather be anywhere but here.</p><p>He looked older – colder – than the last time Sirius had seen him, over a year ago now, at King’s Cross Station, when he’d looked back at him with wide-eyes, full of uncertainty and a tiny flicker of hope.</p><p>Regulus averted his gaze, shifting awkwardly, the way he used to do when they were children, and the boy Sirius knew was back.</p><p>Sirius’ frown eased up a bit, a tiny flicker of hope of his own springing to life at the fact his brother was even here.</p><p>Sirius half-expected that he'd just burnt the note to dust.</p><p>“Found the place alright, then?”</p><p>“Yeah –“ Regulus glanced up and down the corridor, as if to continue to avoid looking at him; “ – bit of a dive, isn’t it?”</p><p>Sirius shot him a look.</p><p>“Watch it, Reg.”</p><p>Even if it wasn’t an <em>entirely</em> inaccurate assessment.</p><p>The lift let out a ting behind where Regulus stood before it opened up.</p><p>The muggle from next door – whom Sirius knew owned the garage down the street – appeared and strode out – almost with a swagger – blackened by oil and with a faint odor of sweat emitting from him, as he stopped up at the door to the left, a lit cigarette hanging out loosely between his lips.</p><p>Regulus stared at him, mouth agape, in disgust; his astonishment so comical that Sirius had to smother a laugh.</p><p>The man noticed and returned Regulus’ stare, before lazily looking him up and down – his little brother in his bloody <em>wizarding robes</em> – and then smirked and turned away, shaking his head as he unlocked the door.</p><p>“Pfft –“ he walked into the adjoining flat; “ – Fucking poofs.”</p><p>The door slammed shut behind him.</p><p>Regulus’ nose wrinkled.</p><p>“Charming.”</p><p>Sirius rolled his eyes.</p><p>“You’re such an uppity little shit, Reg.”</p><p>He grasped him by the shoulder and hauled him in, pushing the door closed behind him.</p><p>Regulus was doing that thing he always did. A careful gaze that he trailed around the room in lieu of actually looking at anyone within it, while Sirius half-wished he'd given his wand a wave on the way past to tidy the place up a bit.</p><p>Still.</p><p>He was just grateful to see his brother here, at all.</p><p>“So, what can I do for you, little brother?” Sirius eventually said, when the silence stretched.</p><p>“I wanted to talk to you.”</p><p>“Good. I’m glad you’re here.”</p><p>Regulus finally relaxed a bit then, looking at him properly for the first time.</p><p>“I wanted to talk to you about the war. And your…” Regulus cleared his throat; “…. loyalties.”</p><p>Sirius stared back at him.</p><p>He could have sworn his blood turned to ice in his veins.</p><p>A sound escaped him – a laugh or a scoff, he neither knew nor cared in that moment – before he crossed his arms.</p><p>“Someone sent you. Mother?”</p><p>Both knew she would never.</p><p>Regulus didn’t answer.</p><p>“No –“ Sirius shook his head, barely able to keep the disgust from his voice; “ – <em>Someone else</em>.”</p><p>So that was the way of it, then.</p><p>His brother - baby Reggie - was a <em>Death Eater</em>.</p><p>Sirius could barely swallow it. Even if he knew, <em>he knew</em>, he shouldn't be surprised.</p><p>He shouldn't be surprised that the line was finally drawn and that they two were on either side of it, facing one another down.</p><p>But rationalising all the facts - all he knew - didn't make him any less <em>sick </em>with the truth of it.</p><p>“He’s interested in you," Regulus told him, and Sirius was vaguely aware that he had been talking while Sirius had just been staring, stupidly, back at him, looking for any sign of the little brother he once knew; "You should be honoured after -”</p><p>“<em>Honoured</em> –“ Sirius repeated, in disbelief, before closing his eyes and shaking his head; “You idiot. <em>You</em> <em>fucking idiot.”</em></p><p>“<em>You’re </em>the idiot, throwing your lot in with a bunch of Dumbledore’s noddies who have no chance of winning the war, anyway,” Regulus said, dropping the detached, Orion-Black-inspired act and sounding every bit the insistent kid that he still was.</p><p>Which, actually, only made Sirius' grief increase tenfold, as Regulus prattled on.</p><p>“The Dark Lord’s been making advances left and right. It won’t be long – a couple of years, <em>at most</em> – before he finally gives the witches and wizards what we deserve. A life free of hiding; a world we can make our own. The muggles will –“</p><p>“<em>Don’t</em> come to me and start spouting out all that <em>dragonshit</em>. I’ve heard it all before.”</p><p>“It’s not dra –“ Regulus hesitated, before he shook his head; “What’s not right is the Ministry and the Statute and all the crazy <em>laws</em>. They’re stifling magic, what’s left of it. And the more the bloodlines dilute, the more wizards and mud –“</p><p>“<em>For the love of</em> – please, <em>stop</em>. You’re embarrassing yourself. And me.”</p><p>“The number of squibs being born are increasing year-on-year,” Regulus went on, though he was blushing, now, at Sirius’ words; “The spread in the Prophet last week had the numbers –“</p><p>“Oh, well, if it was in the <em>Prophet </em>it must be fucking true –“</p><p>“ – well it’s no coincidence, obviously, that so’s the instances of pureblood and half-blood marriages with –“</p><p>“Have you ever even <em>met</em> a muggle, Reg?”</p><p>Regulus pursed his lips together.</p><p>Sirius nodded.</p><p>Before he grabbed his leather jacket from the peg by the door and chucked it at him.</p><p>“Right.”</p><hr/><p>Regulus reached up, rubbing the back of his neck before tugging at the collar of the leather jacket Sirius had told him to wear.</p><p>Under normal circumstances it would be amusing, seeing Regulus all decked out in muggle clothing – particularly <em>this </em>outfit that Sirius had pulled out for him, a bright combination of white, top-tight flared jeans and a multicoloured, tie-dyed, flouncy shirt that was actually the Halloween outfit that Sirius had worn to the Evanses’ the year before – but Sirius was too pissed off at what he’d just learned to enjoy it.</p><p>“Name?” the girl behind the counter said to Regulus, fighting a smile as she looked at him.</p><p>Regulus frowned; “Sorry?”</p><p>“For the order. It’ll take a minute.”</p><p>“Um…I don’t –“</p><p>“Don’t wanna give it? No worries – “ the pen she held went to the receipt, the girl voicing out as she wrote; “Mr. Short, Bright and <em>Mysterious</em> with the Smile.”</p><p>The girl winked, tucking it under the plate on the tray, while Sirius snickered at Regulus’ side and nudged his blushing brother in the direction of one of the empty tables.</p><p>“So –“ Sirius eventually said, when they were seated opposite one another at the table, a <em>‘muffliato’ </em>quickly cast; “What did you have in mind, Reggie? The Black Brothers reunited – hand in hand – taking to field? <em>Muggle Murderers Extraordinaire</em>!”</p><p>“Very funny,” Regulus shot him a look.</p><p>“Well come on then, convince me,” Sirius said, lifting his shoulders in shrug; “That’s why you’re here, right?”</p><p>Sirius gave a vague wave around the coffee shop; “Tell me why all the people in this room deserve to be dead.”</p><p>“That’s <em>not </em>what we’re doing.”</p><p>“Oh, sweet Godric,” Sirius pressed his fingertips to his eyelids.</p><p>“And I’m not bothering trying to convince you, anyway. I know you’d never join.”</p><p>Sirius dropped his hands, glowering at him; “Got that right. I’d rather rot in Azkaban, you tell him that.”</p><p>“If you defy him, he’ll kill you.”</p><p>“Pfft. I’d like to see him try.”</p><p>“I wouldn't.”</p><p>The sincerity in his brother’s voice made Sirius pause, his fury diminishing at the innocent gaze directed back at him.</p><p>Regulus lowered his eyes, fingers fiddling with the corner of a napkin on the table, looking embarrassed at what he'd said.</p><p>“That why you’re here, then? Missed your big brother so much you just <em>jumped</em> at the chance to see me again, even though you knew I’d say no?”</p><p>Regulus kept his eyes on the napkin, not even acknowledging he’d spoken.</p><p>“No,” Sirius ground out; “Just following orders.”</p><p>Regulus drew in a breath, meeting his look with obvious reluctance.</p><p>Sirius smirked.</p><p>“Bet you really struggled with them too.”</p><p>Regulus rolled his eyes, but it did nothing to hide the embarrassment he was now trying to conceal.</p><p>“ – bet you were standing on the other side of that door for ages – hours, even – before you were able to knock. Hard, was it?”</p><p>Regulus opened his mouth, as if to speak, but unable to find the words.</p><p>Sirius shook his head; “Well if you think that knocking on my bloody door was hard, you don’t stand a fucking chance.”</p><p>A thud and a yelp, followed by the cries of a child, suddenly sounded from behind where Sirius sat.</p><p>Regulus very nearly got up, stopping in his movement in a half-stand over his chair, while Sirius glanced over his shoulder at the muggle boy holding his newly skinned knee behind him, as the mother who accompanied him knelt down at his side.</p><p>“Well –“ Sirius turned back to Regulus; “- look at that. Blood’s just like mine. Yours too, by that logic.”</p><p>“<em>What the fuck</em>, Sirius,” Regulus hissed at him; “What are you <em>doing</em>?”</p><p>“You honestly think that was me? And what are <em>you </em>doing?” Sirius eyed him, where his brother was still half-standing, as if to actually go to the boy.</p><p>Regulus immediately regained his composure, sitting back down, even if his eyes did glance back in the direction of the distressed muggle child on the floor.</p><p>Sirius leaned back in his chair, almost amused by the fact that Regulus had evidently been sent to him on a recruitment mission, and how easily the tables, in that regard, could be turned.</p><p>But instead of amusement, he felt only hope.</p><p>Driven not only by that obvious look of concern in his brother’s eyes for the muggle - Regulus never could stand to see anyone in pain - but also after having been privy to the soft, idealistic little idiot his brother still was beneath all this attempted <em>bravado</em> that he had let him see as Padfoot.</p><p>“You think you’re going to be able to do it, Reg?” Sirius pressed; “To stand there, and watch people die?”</p><p>Regulus sighed, looking away from the boy and back to Sirius.</p><p>“No one has to die, if they’d just fall in line.”</p><p>“Even you’re not that dumb,” Sirius snapped, furiously; “Where the hell do you think all the people who’ve been disappearing have been going?”</p><p>Regulus swallowed, eyes and fingers going back to the blasted napkin.</p><p>“It’s war, Sirius.”</p><p>Sirius stared back at him, futilely waiting until his brother looked back up of his own accord.</p><p>“War. Right. See, Reggie –“ Sirius leaned forward in his chair, forcing his brother to look at him; “ – just so happens I’ve had a first-hand look at that war – which is something I <em>know</em> can’t be said for you – and let’s just clear something up right now; when you’re out there, duelling to the <em>death</em>, and there’s all that screaming and blood and curses and bloody <em>bodies</em> dropping dead all around you, no one gives a shit about what happened centuries ago in those books you can’t keep your nose out of and no one gives a shit about half-baked promises about futures that don’t exist. They just <em>die</em> or they don’t.”</p><p>Regulus shifted, both his hands going beneath the table – as if he were about to sit on them – the way he’d do as a child when he was nervous during the heated words Sirius would exchange with their parents at dinner.</p><p>But he didn’t, catching himself – and the nervous habit – just in time, just as the girl from the counter appeared with a tray of what they’d ordered, setting it up on the table.</p><p>Regulus waited until she left, before he reached with hands that weren’t quite steady and lifted the teapot, pouring the liquid into the cup in front of him.</p><p>Sirius shook his head as he watched him.</p><p>His tea-drinking, book-devouring baby brother.</p><p>“You really think that <em>you</em> have what it takes to go to war?”</p><p>Regulus glowered at him, in that earnestly indignant way that he did as a child whenever Sirius insulted him.</p><p>“I’m not a coward,” Regulus said; “I’m willing to fight for what I believe in.”</p><p>“And are you willing to kill for it?”</p><p>Regulus’ reddened cheeks were no longer quite so pink, his little brother paling at his words.</p><p>Sirius scoffed.</p><p>“My baby brother who flinches whenever our mother crushes a bloody <em>spider</em> beneath her boot.”</p><p>Regulus’ hands were squeezed together, now, in between his knees, as he glowered at the table.</p><p>“It’s not you, Reg. Never will be.”</p><p>“Guess we’re about to find out.”</p><p>“I dearly wish we weren’t.”</p><p>“What do you expect me to do?” Regulus snapped, visibly rattled, now, by Sirius’ words – <em>good riddance</em> – and shook his head; “I’m not <em>you</em>, Sirius, you know I’d never run. Family actually means something to some of us and shoving off is nothing to be proud of. It’s shameful –“</p><p>“Oh, well, now you’re just quoting the old hag to me,” Sirius cut him off; “Don’t do that, Reg. I want to hear <em>you</em>. Not them. Not your books. Talk to me.”</p><p>“I have nothing to say –“ Regulus made to stand up – to leave – but Sirius halted him with a firm grasp of his left forearm, it wasn't tight but his brother flinched as he looked almost in a panic at the hand over his arm.</p><p>“Well, I do,” Sirius said, lowly, tightening his grip and pulling him closer with his eyes flashing; “You’re a moron, Reg –“</p><p>Regulus tried to pull his arm back, agitatedly, pushing at his hand; “Get off!”</p><p>“- an <em>idiot. </em>You’re going to see things that no one should ever see, do things that you never would’ve believed anyone – never mind yourself – were capable of. People are going to be screaming at you – begging you to spare them, to <em>help </em>them – and you know what? You’re going to <em>want</em> to –“</p><p>Regulus finally stopped pushing at him, meeting his look, uneasily.</p><p>“ – You’re never going to want anything more in your sorry life than to help these people. And none of those damn books, or your <em>Dark Lord’s</em> promises or Mummy-dearest’s pride are going to make any of it worth it when you can’t. <em>None of it</em>. You’re going to be dying right along with them. <em>I know you</em>, Reg. Even if you survive it; this war is going to kill you.”</p><p>His brother’s eyes were upon him, so much like the way they used to be when they were just kids as he’d tease him with stories about boggarts and thestrals, wide-eyed and terrified, gobbling up everything his big brother said.</p><p>Emboldened by the reminiscence, Sirius released a breath.</p><p>“Don’t let it.”</p><p>Regulus turned cooler then, and he simply stared back at him for a second before he calmly drew his arm back from Sirius’ grip, settling back down into his seat. He lifted the teacup from the saucer in front of him, taking a sip, and made no acknowledgement of Sirius’ plea whatsoever, his eyes going to the liquid in the cup.</p><p>“They make it differently. Not sure if it’s better.”</p><p>Sirius drew back, sitting straighter in his chair, and he let his disappointment show – for he knew that disappointment and disapproval and grief were things that his brother could never handle – before he shook his head, his voice dripping with them all when he spoke.</p><p>“Suit yourself, little brother.”</p><p>Sirius got to his feet and left, determined not to make any backwards glance.</p><p>And he didn’t – not really – for it was actually a <em>sideways </em>glance he took, as he stepped out onto the pavement and looked back through the window of the coffee shop that he’d just left.</p><p>Regulus was still sitting where Sirius had left him.</p><p>But the coldness in his expression was gone. Had left, apparently, when Sirius did.</p><p>Now, Regulus just looked uneasy – like a lost little boy – with his eyes on the muggle boy who had fallen that was now smiling, as his mother handed him an ice cream at the counter, while Regulus’ hand absentmindedly rubbed the left forearm that Sirius had gripped.</p><p>Odd.</p><p>That was a nervous habit Sirius had never seen him do before.</p><hr/><p>Regulus’ first summons – the unexpectedly agonizing burn of his arm – came a week later.</p><p>And he went, knowing the protocol and exactly what was expected of him, for Lucius had gone over it multiple times – shoving aside all the reservations that had arisen and played on his mind ever since his meeting with Sirius – for he was still sure and <em>proud </em>and determined that this was what he was supposed to do and where he was supposed to be.</p><p>He bowed and he crawled and he kissed the hem of his master’s robes.</p><p>All a bit of a circus, if he were honest, and he had to stop himself from chuckling because it actually made him think of his mother and how he was surprised it wasn’t something that she’d made him and Sirius do growing up.</p><p>That was the last humorous thought he had that night.</p><p>In fact, he doubted he’d ever be able to laugh again after what happened next. </p><p>Dismissed to duty with Severus-<em>Sectumsempra</em>-Snape, of all people, and his eldest cousin, who didn’t seem to know which of the two she wanted to torment the most the whole time they were there.</p><p>Regulus stumbled down the street towards Grimmauld Place, his hands and his legs and his breathing shaky, as he tried – desperately – to forget what had just happened.</p><p>All that he’d just seen.</p><p>It had only been an hour.</p><p>Maybe even less.</p><p>But it had been the single worst moment of time in his life.</p><p>He didn’t even know how – or when – he reached the gate to the house, his hand curling around the spiked bars of the fence.</p><p>He swayed there, for a second, unseeingly.</p><p>Before he turned and wretched, violently, onto the pavement.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Eek! It's all real for Reggie now. Hope you guys enjoyed this one!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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